


Stealth and Sacrifice

by GoblinCatKC



Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV 2012)
Genre: 30 day challenge, Gen, gonna get bloody, kinda dark too, ninja are supposed to be stealthy, that became something else, things left behind, wasuremono
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-12
Updated: 2016-07-10
Packaged: 2018-05-26 06:01:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 31
Words: 32,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6226708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoblinCatKC/pseuds/GoblinCatKC
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being a ninja means understanding techniques for concealment, and what is concealment but another way of denying your own existence? When Leonardo begins slipping further and further into the shadows, it isn't so easy to bring him back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. "Some voice within him drives him on, insisting, relentless, again Leonardo..."

**Author's Note:**

> This began as a 30 Day Challenge off tumblr, but it quickly grew into something else, so I have removed the prompts and replaced them with better fitting quotes from various sources.

He practiced more than his brothers, more than Splinter demanded. One more kata, one more drill, one more practice flip of the sword—-his fingers grew numb and his knuckles bled. They've all nicked themselves from time to time, and they all learned to ignore little injuries, except Michelangelo, who tried to use his bruises to weasel out of practice.

Michelangelo, who didn't need practice. Leonardo watched him enviously, studying the way he moved. It was impossible to copy how he landed, the way he caught himself from falling. Michelangelo, who had such raw, natural talent that he didn't need to practice. He simply got it the first time, performing new katas upside down and backwards.

Would his brothers laugh if they knew the "perfect" son, "Fearless" and "Splinter Jr.," measured himself against the baby of the family? Raphael hadn't noticed, too intent on beating Leonardo that his frustration and anger won the best of him. Raphael tripped _himself_ up; Leonardo only took advantage of his mistakes. Donatello practiced enough to keep up with them, but no one doubted where his true talent lay.

Leonardo did not have raw talent or anger or any skill beyond his own punishing doubt.

A three point landing, two feet on the ground, one hand down so he didn't slip forward, his sword extended out for balance. Leonardo flipped again. And again. And again. Each time he felt himself wobble. He dropped his sword once. His head snapped back too hard, giving him a headache. He flipped again, changing to a two point landing, feet only, sword out for balance, his free hand up as if to block or catch a knife thrown by an imaginary enemy.

And he crashed sideways on his shoulder. His sword skittered across the floor into the darkness.

Muffling his groan, he sat up and looks out. No one had noticed. The lair was dark. Michelangelo had fallen asleep in front of the television again, Raphael and Donatello were in bed, and Splinter was in his own—

"You lean to the left."

Leonardo froze, then looked to his right where his sword fell. It slid back across the floor to him, and as he took it up, he recognized Splinter's silhouette against the wall.

"And you leap too hard. This is a softer jump." Splinter relaxed into his usual position, kneeling with hands hands resting on his lap. "And you are tired."

The criticism sunk into Leonardo, and he exhaled and lowered his head. "I'm sorry."

"For what?" Splinter chuckled once. "For realizing that you will not always have the luxury of fighting fresh? Begin again, and do not be so hard on yourself if you cannot learn it all in one night."

Lifting his head in relief, Leonardo nodded and rose to his feet.


	2. "I can't keep fighting alien technology with a six foot staff."

Donatello never expected the others to understand him. They didn't think like he did. Leonardo thought with his body. So did Raphael. They both moved easily together, all sharp turns and powerful thrusts. Donatello practiced enough to keep up, did his time in the dojo, but they all knew where his true talents lay. Once katas and sparring were done, after new lessons were absorbed, he headed alone to his lab and absorbed himself in his engineering.

Michelangelo, however, would sometimes join him, looking over his shoulder at blueprints with curious darting glances that made Donatello wonder just how much his little brother understood. When Raphael claimed the TV to watch mixed martial arts tournaments, and when Leonardo wouldn't leave the dojo to play arcade games, Michelangelo flopped on the floor beside Donatello's feet, reading comic books and drinking soda. Donatello sighed at every distracting chuckle and squeak out of his brother, rolling his eyes when Michelangelo hummed along to a song blasting on his headphones, but he never shooed his brother out.

And sometimes they dragged Donatello out of his lab to repair the tv, or the arcade game. The refrigerator or the microwave. The lights. The heater. The air conditioner. The water heater. Every appliance they own had to be coaxed back to life with recharged batteries and wire twisted free from junk yard salvage. Occasionally stray voltage scorched his fingers already scratched on sharp steel and rough, unfinished edges. He didn't mind the pain too much. It was the price to pay for working electronics, and the busy work was good practice for the basics.

But in his lab! That was where he found his chief joy—alien technology plucked from the krang, machinery stolen from the Foot clan, current technology liberally borrowed from various stores. Engineering projects of his own design littered the lab, each one half-finished as new ideas demanded his attention. When he did finish one, he displayed it proudly to his siblings.

And sometimes his project didn't explode immediately, but his brothers learned to keep a healthy distance.

Tonight, though, he'd left his lab dark. They'd gathered in front of the TV for Super Robo Mecha Force Five, and Michelangelo had made hot chocolate with marshmallows. Raphael and Leonardo were on opposite sides of the couch, not looking at each other. They must have argued about something earlier, but they'd reconciled enough to tolerate each other to share the popcorn between them.

Donatello divided his attention between the show and his notepad, working out long calculations—voltage, resistance, timing functions and potential amperage for his next creation. He frowned. Math was fine, but it was only one step toward the more enjoyable process of soldering connectors and assembling a chassis. It' would be a long night before he finished this prep work and even thought about drawing up blueprints, let alone gathering the materials—

"Yo, egghead," Michelangelo said, grinning up from under the notepad.

"Mikey," Donatello grumbled. "I'm busy—"

"Busy missing the best part," Michelangelo said, and he sat up so that the notepad tumbled into Donatello's lap. "Look, space princess is about to do her new transformation sequence!"

For a moment, Donatello lifted his head to see, watching her slow and elaborate spin as ribbons spiral out of her locket and alter her uniform. There was a swirl of light around her and then she posed, hand up to challenge evil, daring her enemies to attack. She was easily outnumbered a hundred to one, and yet she gave them a handwave as if trying to taunt them.

It was so ridiculous that Donatello chuckled, then laughed as Leonardo and Raphael both leaned forward, cheering her on as if this kind of fight made any kind of sense. Of course they'd love this kind of lopsided battle. They probably fantasized about beating up legions of Foot ninja and posing exactly like the princess was doing—

—and they were both talking to each other like brothers again. Donatello blinked and looked down at Michelangelo, who was studying the fight scene with all the concentration of someone who didn't want to meet Donatello's look and betray a secret.

With one cartoon, Michelangelo had everyone inside, together, smiling.

Donatello relaxed a little more in his seat, rolling the stiffness out of his shoulders. The numbers could wait 'till the morning. Tonight he'd discovered a new little puzzle to solve and, like the endless alarm clocks of his youth, he wanted to take Michelangelo apart to see what made him tick.


	3. "a lotus blossom"

He learned stealth from a thief.

Not that he was a slouch before. Leonardo mastered the techniques of concealing himself, of misdirection, hiding behind the obvious door or locker or cabinet until his enemies looked, and then—-he was gone, watching them from the vent in the wall, masked within a dark supply closet. The places that his enemies called their own are riddled with equipment, machinery, fake offices. They provided him with plenty of cover, and he used them as smoothly as if they were planned out for him in advance.

But she—-nameless thief that he spots one night—-she hadn't mastered stealth. She breathed it, hidden in plain sight, not concealing herself but simply standing where no one looked.

He was lucky to spot her. A street music festival that jammed long into the night with college kids and bohemians partying with jazz and rock bands on every corner, ravers in their glowing jewelry drawn to the faint sounds of electronica pumping out of basement clubs…he watched them from a comfortable perch on a dark water tower, curious about the mix of sound and the camera flashes.

And then—across the street beside a rooftop air conditioner—she moved, only a small motion of her hand and knee to readjust, but he caught it. And froze. He'd been there for an hour, enjoying the breeze from the ocean and the respite from the smog, and he hadn't seen her. Hadn't even known she was there.

If she'd been a Foot ninja, he would've been dead. And he didn't even know who she was. Enemy? Potential friend? Neither?

Did she know he was there?

He looked again. No, she didn't seem to notice him. Maybe she arrived after he had. Or maybe she'd seen him and didn't care.

She was almost impossible to see. Small enough to sit comfortably in the shadows, dressed all in black, what he thought was long dark hair behind her—-

She tensed, seemed to count, nodding her head in time—

There was a crash of cymbals and a loud shout from the crowd as one band launches into a complex drum and bass rhythm, drawing everyone's attention.

—and then she dropped down the side of the building, using the rain gutter to guide her down faster than even he often dared. She landed on the pavement on black boots with heels—-he winced in shock. He can barely manage that kind of drop on flat feet, and she managed in heels?

Then he almost lost her again. In the neon light pouring out of bar windows, she was non-descript. Not beautiful, not ugly, not tall and yet not short enough to draw attention. Not clothed in a miniskirt or sparkly tube dress, just black jeans and a denim top. She could be anyone.

He studied her, enrapt as she walked through the crowd. No one looked at her as she moved by, hovering at the edge of one group, then sliding along behind a trio of girls in bright batik dresses. He felt as if he was reading a manual—How to Hide in Plain Sight.

No one saw her pause by one of the seated musicians, bend slightly, pick up his suitcase and then keep walking.

She was out of sight down an alley in seconds.

And then she was gone, one of New York's little secrets. It was almost fifteen minutes before the musician cried out that his suitcase is stolen, and Leonardo's breath caught once more.

There was a handcuff dangling from his wrist, clearly supposed to be locked to the suitcase. It wasn't broken. It had been smoothly unclasped.

Master Splinter taught him everything he knew about concealment.

Tonight, like a single flower rising out of the mud, she revealed more about stealth than he even imagined existed.


	4. "I wanna be a hero now!"

Donatello still called it "Timothy." He treated it like something still alive, still sane. He talked to it when no one else was in the lab. But at least Michelangelo provided some company now, either with a quiet presence reading comic books on the floor or bugging Donatello with endless questions.

Raphael tried not to think about it. That mutagen could react so violently with DNA sent him screaming out of nightmares filled with horribly mutated squirrels, wasps and roaches. After Slash's change and betrayal, he dreamed about his brothers all broken and bloodied, dropped a dozen stories to smash on the pavement, torn down the middle by his pet turtle's claws. He dreamed of Michelangelo relapsing into secondary mutation and melting on himself. And that thing in Donatello's lab was a reminder he'd rather see flushed and forgotten.

Michelangelo treated it like a fish in a bowl. If he tapped on the glass, Donatello scolded him and chased him off, but the way that "Timothy" jerked and startled around in his jar enthralled him, like a kid watching an ant hill. Whenever Donatello started to talk to it, treating it like a normal person, Michelangelo slung an arm around his brother's shoulder and asked about the new shiny, funky project that he was working on. His brainy brother hadn't caught on, but the thing in the jar seemed to mad dog glare at him when he did it.

Leonardo only saw it late at night. He dropped a blanket over Donatello's shell, nudged him and coaxed him away from his desk. As Donatello staggered toward the dark lair, making his way toward his room, Leonardo paused. And looked at the jar.

He didn't like to think of the threat inside that fragile glass, malevolent and frighteningly focused on his brother. It attacked them before. It could do so again. And while Donatello knew how dangerous it is, he still kept it around, calling it by name—-as if it was still that annoying human dogging their steps.

"Ah. You are still awake."

Splinter stood in the doorway, peering in to see what had caught his son's attention. When he saw the jar and the thing floating inside it, he frowned and his whiskers twitched downward.

"Has it moved?"

"No," Leonardo said, shaking his head. "Don really locked it down. It can't reach anything."

"Mm." Splinter stepped closer and leaned to take a better look. The eyes focused on him and blinked, and he stood straight again, exhaling deeply. "Your brother works hard trying to save this boy."

"It isn't a boy," Leonardo said flatly, without any emotion. "I…master, I don't think it can be saved. It's…it's not even the person it was before. And it's not safe. Why…?"

He looked down, realizing what he was asking. How it sounded to ask such a thing. Why was it still alive? Why was it here? Why didn't they just get rid of it?

His brothers were all asleep. At least they didn't hear him ask that. True, it was a cold blooded decision, but leaders have to make hard decisions sometimes. And Captain Ryan would've approved, too.

"Donatello has invested a great amount of his own sense of self-worth in saving this boy," Splinter said slowly, sounding out the reason for both his son and himself. "To lose that opportunity would be a terrible blow for him. Perhaps one he is not ready to shoulder yet."

Splinter sighed, turning away from the jar and walking out. Leonardo followed at his side, flicking off the light as they went. In the lair, the silence felt loud, every step a faint echo, the hum of electronics distinct. His training kicked in, making him move as if he were being watched.

"I don't like having it here," Leonardo murmured.

Pausing, Splinter looked at him, then up toward their bedrooms, focusing on Donatello's door as if he could see his son crashing on his futon.

"I am concerned for your brother," Splinter said. Then took a deep breath. "But I agree. If that creature becomes a threat once again…do not hesitate, my son."

Leonardo blinked, looking up in surprise. Splinter was always compassionate…but like his father said, compassion didn't mean being insane. And he'd once been told that, when the stakes were high enough, he shouldn't hesitate to do what needed to be done. Even if that meant self-sacrifice.

Or sacrificing someone else. Like a door swinging open in his mind, this lesson suddenly sent his thoughts down new routes of potentials and opportunities. Sacrificing himself was scary but it could keep his family safe. Sacrificing someone else…just the thought would take some getting used to.

But imagining that thing in the jar being poured down the drain in bits and pieces made it that much easier.


	5. "You will leave here with nothing, not even your lives."

September rain was cold and stung even through their shells. It beat a constant, grating drone on their faces and made everything slick and freezing. Rooftops became treacherous. Visibility was down; in the gloom, they only made out the silhouette of buildings, the blur of lights, and the shiny glare off a few hundred m.o.u.s.e.r.s. on their heels.

Desperation. Leonardo has felt it before, staying behind to stall his enemy while his brothers escaped. The sensation of fear and dwindling hope pooled in his stomach and settled like heavy lead, dragging him down with it. Desperation meant something drastic had to happen, and drastic always hurt.

Rain washed the blood down his skin. A m.o.u.s.e.r.s.'s bite left gouges, and even a glancing scrape left a long slice. His brothers looked no better. They'd been running for nearly half an hour, following him along a random path of fire escapes, rooftops, through broken windows and across rain flooded culverts. Baxter's m.o.u.s.e.r.s. followed tenaciously, their snapping jaws only inches behind, tracking them by the faint scent of blood through the rain.

"Okay," Michelangelo gasped, hanging slung over a street lamp. "We take five, then I'm good."

"Totally," Raphael said. Blood covered half his face, a cut just above his eye. "Just gotta…get my second wind."

Donatello didn't talk, frantically pushing and pulling his gps locator map for any good places to hide. From the look on his face, he couldn't find anything close. The rain made the communicator slip from his hands and fall to the pavement where a m.o.u.s.e.r. immediately bit it in half.

With a groan nearly swallowed by the rain, Donatello lifted his head and looked at his brother.

Leonardo met his eyes steadily. He knew that look. That stare dug into him and made everything just that much worse.

Fix it. Make it better, Leo. Find the one path out and lead us there.

From his perch on the streetlamp, though, he could barely see anything. A silver screen of heavy rain all around them. Indistinct neon and glowing windows. The streetlamps that they were hanging from would soon be gnawed through by the hordes of m.o.u.s.e.r.s. around them, and if that power coursed wildly around them, it woudln't just be the vicious little robots that were electrocuted.

And then he saw the blurry shape coming up the road. It was tall, disjointed, and… He blinked and wiped the rain from his face. Rahzar, his claws and fangs gleaming, came with Baxter Stockman cringing beside him.

Laughing.

Leonardo's despair vanished into something else. His brothers were close to being chopped to pieces and these two monsters were laughing.

A new feeling opened in his mind, a door that had been closed previously. He'd killed before, mindless mutants who were little more than animals. But this maliciousness, this glee at their suffering, his enemies' joy at seeing his brothers bleeding and weary and close to death…

He let go of the lamp and dropped straight down.

His brothers yelled something, but their shouts and the rain and the clanging m.o.u.s.e.r.s. all faded away into a thin whine in his ears. Slowed by the rain and crowded in tight, the m.o.u.s.e.r.s. lagged, giving him a split second to jump from one to the other, a zig zag line leading straight toward Rahzar and Stockman.

Rahzar saw him coming and tensed, claws out, ready to catch and slice him apart. To everyone's surprise, Leonardo ducked and sidestepped him completely and caught Stockman in a powerful tackle that sent them both sliding across the street.

Rahzar was running toward them. Leonardo felt his heavy footsteps slamming down on the pavement. With no time to think about what he was about to do, he brought up his remaining sword and thrust it deep into Stockman's stomach, pinning him like a bug on display.

Stockman opened his mouth to scream, but Leonardo didn't hear it. He looked over his shoulder and saw Rahzar diving toward him. When Rahzar landed on Stockman, Leonardo wasn't there, using his sword to flip over Stockman and sommersault farther from Rahzar's claws.

That was when the m.o.u.s.e.r.s. caight up. And Rahzar spotted the deep cut Leonardo's made in his arm, trailing blood all the way back to where Stockman lay pinned, writhing and impaled. Despite all the rain, Leonardo's blood soaked Stockman's shirt and face, and the m.o.u.s.e.r.s. have found him.

In a moment, Stockman was set upon by a dozen of the quickest robots, whose strong, scissors-like jaws tore through skin, muscle and bone.

Strings of entrails, scraps of skin…Leonardo had never seen it so close before. Never outside of a horror movie.

The whine in his ears stopped and sound exploded back on him—the rain, the robots, Rahzar, his brothers. Leonardo's head swam. Cold and sick, he was losing too much blood. The world snapped back into focus, but only for him to stumble backward and land on his shell. There were a hundred m.o.u.s.e.r.s. turning from what was left of Stockman and following the bloody trail, and Rahzar was howling in fury.

No. Rahzar's voice turned high pitched. Howling in pain. Leonardo blinked away rain and tilts his head. Rahzar was stumbling as well, covered in two dark blurs that cling to him for a moment and then darted away as the m.o.u.s.e.r.s. converged on him. While Rahzar screamed and fled with robots clamped on his tail, Leonardo found an arm under his shoulders, lifting him back to his feet.

"Come on, fearless," Raphael grunted, the only one strong enough to move him so easily. "I can't carry ya. You gotta pull your own weight for a little while longer."

Moving was a bad idea. Leonardo did it anyway, increasingly nauseous as the shock starts to set in. Just how deep did he cut himself? He wasn't thinking clearly when he did it. They headed for the closest manhole cover, and as soon as they climbed underground, they spared just long enough to finally get a good look at Leonardo's wound. And they all flinch.

"The hell, Leo?" Raphael whispered, taking off his mask to tie it around the cut. "Why'd you cut so much?"

"Don't remember doing it," Leonardo mumbled. He was leaning too much on Michelangelo and tried to stand, only to slump completely against him.

A moment later, he was on Raphael's shell, carried piggyback through the dark. At first he lifted his head and wanted to argue that he can walk, but he felt as if he hadn't slept in years. Groaning, he rested his head on his brother's shoulder, floating in and out of consciousness.

One thought stood out.

Baxter Stockman was dead. They would never have to deal with the man again. His machines, sure, but new inventions? Angry retaliation? Never.

What he felt was not desperation. Nor fear. Not even nausea. Nothing.

He felt nothing.


	6. " I have tried to prepare them for the worst that the world has to offer"

Stockman, over and over again, choking on his blood. Hands on the sword blade, cutting himself as he tried to pull it out. His screams turning into shrieks until the m.o.u.s.e.r.s. bit his head off.

The memory comforted Leonardo as his arm healed, stitched together and dressed as best as their meager supplies can offer. As if asleep, he lay still and tried not to wince as his brothers set him on the futon and pulled the blanket up, careful not to jostle the deep wound.

His brothers said nothing at first. This was the first serious injury they'd suffered, the first time they'd killed anyone that wasn't a mutagenic mess. As he hovered at the edge of consciousness, too shaken to rest but too worn to stay awake, he listened to them whisper about what they saw.

"So much blood."

"Did you hear that scream?"

"Tore him into chunks."

Their frowns and furrowed eyeridges turned inward on themselves, each of them sitting close as if it helps settle what they saw. Leonardo hated to see them like this—uneasy, sickened. After a fight, they always came home reassured that they did the right thing, that they won today and that they'd win tomorrow, too. That they taunted death and came away unscathed.

Death never came so close before, and Leonardo hadn't stopped it. He'd only changed its direction a little. As his brothers shared troubled looks, silently moving toward each other for comfort, he wanted to move, reach his hand out to them. His body felt like lead, pressing heavily onto the mattress, and then Splinter swept in front of him.

"His own creations did that to him," Splinter said without any sympathy for their dead enemy. "He would have done the same to you, and worse to the city."

"I get that, master," Raphael said, rubbing his arm. He didn't want to contradict, accepting what his father said without argument, and yet the feelings in him wouldn't stop twisting. "It's just…it was so…"

Splinter watched him. Yes, he knew what Raphael means, and he sighed not in frustration but understanding. He waved them closer, and the three of them eagerly clung to him, tugging his robes in their hands. They were no longer small enough that he could scoop them up, but he could hold them, comforting, warm, strong.

"I do not expect you to pretend it was not terrible," Splinter said, and he touched Raphael's shoulder. "Such a brutal, violent end would make even the most hardened warrior flinch. But better him than you. I am glad to my heart that you were not hurt."

Raphael nodded, and Donatello and Michelangelo with him.

Through slitted eyes, outside of their small, warm circle, Leonardo watched them silently.

In his mind, Stockman's face again disappeared in a m.o.u.s.e.r.s.' bite.


	7. "I hope you learn that truth isn't the only thing that hurts."

His head hurt for hours. "Stress," Splinter said. "And blood loss." There wasn't much they can do about that, except some ibuprofen and a full night's sleep, followed by a bowl of weak broth.

"Sick food," Raphael said.

"Rest up," from Michelangelo.

"Don't exert yourself right now," from Donatello.

Leonardo didn't reply except to nod. How could he? Those comments weren't meant for a response. They glanced away from him, wouldn't meet his looks. They stared at the soup they left behind or the edge of the futon. They didn't actually look at him.

At least when Splinter changed the dressing around his arm, Michelangelo held him. Leonardo could hold out as Splinter untucked the bandage and softly unwound it, but when the wound along his forearm was exposed to the air, he hissed and turned away, pressing his face against Michelangelo's shoulder.

There was blood—less of it now than before, but he cut deep when he pressed his arm against his blade. Up close, the veins were too close for comfort. Splinter examined the stitches, cleaned fresh blood from the edges. He daubed the wound as lightly as he could, but he said nothing as Leonardo struggled to hold back his shudders.

"If you had cut any closer," Splinter breathed, streaking cold antiseptic along the slice. "Or any less evenly with your muscle, you could have been ruined for life. As it is, you will not practice or do anything requiring the use of your arm for the rest of the month...perhaps longer."

Leonardo didn't argue. His arm was bound into a sling so he could move a little more freely, but when Splinter was done, Leonardo didn't pull away from his brother. Michelangelo was warm and, of the four, the most willing to hold him as long as he'd allow.

But when Leonardo glanced up at him, Michelangelo was looking askance at the far wall.

"Why?" Leonardo wanted to ask. "There's nothing interesting there. I haven't put up posters like you. It's just peeling old concrete. What's so fascinating about it?"

He didn't ask out loud. After a moment, he closed his eyes.

"Y'know," Michelangelo said suddenly. "If you wanna come, channel six is having a Space Heroes marathon later. Maybe it'll take your mind off the pain."

Leonardo considered the idea. Briefly. After that stormy, bloody night, having any of them close helped soothe the throb pulsing in his arm. But hours of them refusing to look at him, focused instead on a show that none of them are really interested in besides him, and he knew how the show ended anyway… Not something he wanted to put any of them through.

"Thanks but…" He shook his head, slowly sitting straight and pulling free from Michelangelo's hold. "I'm gonna be asleep in a couple minutes. Maybe later."

It wasn't a lie. He settled on the futon, his eyes already closing, only to look up as Michelangelo pulled the blanket over him. He would have said something except the hazy blur in his head was already dragging him down towards sleep. He was vaguely aware of Michelangelo sitting beside him for another moment, then getting up to let him sleep, closing the door behind himself.

Alone, Leonardo stared at the single thread of gold light coming from the space under the door. Shadows flit back and forth, his brothers eating take out, laughing about something on television. They talked loudly at first, then shushed each other when they remembered Leonardo trying to rest.

He was fast asleep by the time Michelangelo came back to check on him.


	8. "one of the real difficulties in living a life of honor is that sometimes you might have to pay the ultimate price for it"

In the lair, the Spaces Heroes series finale was playing; Captain Ryan sat in his captain's chair, buying his crew time to escape as he prepared to ram the enemy vessel. Then the flash of light as he crashed, a hero's death—

"Turn that thing off," Raphael muttered.

"Yeah." Michelangelo sighed and flicked the remote. "Never did know what Leo saw in it anyway."

They were all sitting on the couch, closer than they normally do. Donatello balanced the laptop on his knees while Raphael slumped in his seat as if he might slide off. On the floor, Michelangelo curled up and leaned against Raphael's legs, hugging his knees to his chest.

"It's the only other leader he's ever seen," Donatello replied without thinking.

They winced. Like a heavy lump in the middle of the room, the memory refused to leave. Not Baxter Stockman's screaming, not Rahzar bearing down on their brother, not even the terrible m.o.u.s.e.r.s. chasing them half the night, biting through brick walls and steel fences to follow.

They all remembered their brother shaking, lying on his side, choking on the pain of such a deep cut. The layers of skin, muscle and the flash of bone gleaming under the streetlamp. The smell of blood even over the rain—

"It's my fault," they all said.

With wide eyes, they looked at each other.

"If I could've found a better escape route," Donatello said.

"Or if I just crushed a few more of them each time we stopped—" Michelangelo added.

"It wouldn't of mattered." Raphael shook his head. "Me and Leo, that first night Stockman had those things, we ran all over town that night. It was insane. And it was me and Leo we're talking about. Those things are nuts. It doesn't matter if the A minus team was there, too."

Donatello paused, lightly tapping the edge of his laptop. Then shut it and set it aside. "I don't wanna be the A minus team anymore."

Without any humor, Raphael snorted. "Sure, sure. Whatever. You're both nowhere near—"

"I'm serious," Donatello said. "I know I don't practice as much as you and Leo do. But after last night, I think I need to."

Raphael grimaced. "Him and me couldn't get rid of them. What would it matter—?"

"At least I wouldn't have been hanging off a streetlamp like dead weight!" Donatello snapped. "I could've destroyed a few more of those things, I might not have been so tired. I…"

He lowered his head and fell silent. Michelangelo watched him for a moment, feeling his stomach twisting up in knots. At least Donatello had his machines and gadgets to explain his lack of practice. Michelangelo? His excuse was that practice wasn't as fun as comics and tv. Could he go tell that to Leonardo now? After last night?

"I think I wanna practice more, too," Michelangelo said softly. "I don't wanna see Leo like that again. I don't wanna see any of us like that."

Behind them, there was a familiar rustle of cloth as Splinter came out of his meditation and rose, coming toward them. He lay his hand on Donatello's shoulder, meeting their looks evenly.

"I am sure your brother will appreciate both your concern for him and your desire to make his burden easier to bear," he said. "In doing so, however, you realize that this will not be easy. It will require more practice and study than you currently do. There will be days you might not be able to partake in the things you enjoy. Your games and books. Your machinery."

Donatello and Michelangelo nodded, and then Raphael did, too. A little more practice than usual wasn't too bad if it would help avoid situations like last night, even if Splinter insisted on—

"Meditation, I think," Splinter said, "is our first step. There is no sense in you learning the next form if you are too focused on the events of last night. Come back to the dojo. We will begin there until your minds are more clear."

Raphael heaved a long sigh, glaring at his siblings from the corner of his eye. They both smiled sheepishly, then ran after Splinter, leaping over the couch in one go. Raphael shook his head, glancing at Leonardo's bedroom, and shrugged.

"The things we do for each other," Raphael grumbled, following with dragging steps.


	9. "I have no problem risking my own life, but risking my brother's…"

Skin and muscle healed over long, interminable days. Splinter, amazed by his progress, says that a side effect of mutagen must be quick healing. To Leonardo, the wound took forever to close, forever to dissolve some of the stitches. He eventually pulled out the rest of the tiny little strings despite Splinter's disapproval.

The wound bled in a way that he'd never experienced before. He'd never been cut so deep. If he turned his hand, held anything heavier than a pencil, then his forearm protested like pulling a string too tight. Too much pressure and the thick scab broke and stained the bandage red. The wound was trying to reopen itself, and he felt like he was fighting himself to mend.

The pain pills helped. A little. His family couldn't steal anything prescription strength, so he popped three to four over the counter ibuprofen at a time. It made his stomach wrench, and sometimes he curled up protectively around his arm and his plastron, trying to stop the nausea along with the pain.

After five weeks, he could practice again. His fingers curled around the hilt as he remembered it, satisfying and familiar, but the weight felt off. He wasted an entire day trying to readjust to its heft and had to end early when the sword refused to stay in his hand no matter hard he gripped.

His brothers looked at him in pity. Leonardo would have rather faced Karai at her most poisonous. The next day he pretended that he was back to normal and simply favored that hand, adjusting to counter and block almost entirely with his right.

When Splinter told him, gently and away from his brothers' hearing, that holding things will now feel a little tighter in that arm, Leonardo did not hear encouragement. He heard that he was unbalanced. He heard that Splinter did not expect him to improve, to regain that balance.

He wasn't allowed to spar. He could practice with his brothers, but he trembled after too long holding his sword, and they noticed. They expected him to argue and insist on joining their matches, but he quietly sat at the side and took a long breath. And watched.

Five and a half weeks have passed since he last practiced in earnest.

Already his brothers have exceeded him.

He suspected it would happen. Even before, they found it easy to overwhelm him, especially if they teamed up, but now he watched them with an unwavering stare and a sinking feeling. True, Michelangelo's form was sloppy, Donatello's slow and overly precise, and Raphael…was still Raphael.

They didn't have his technique and follow-through. But what good was technique and follow-through in a brawl? No one cared whose technique and style was flawless when all that matters was who was alive or dead. In his restless thoughts, he pointed out all their missteps and mistakes, but the complaints only made himself sound like petty child trying to excuse his own faults.

His brothers fought better than he did. Splinter was serious when he said they wanted to train. While Leonardo lay resting and healing, wasting time, they were in the dojo from morning to evening. They all put aside their own pleasures and hobbies for extra time. Donatello stumbled because he'd been staying up too late, working in what little time he could for projects in his lab. Michelangelo's comic books stood in a forgotten pile next to Raphael's unviewed DVDs.

Despite his insecurity, Leonardo was proud of them. Splinter always said that, if focused, Michelangelo had the talent to outshine his siblings. Donatello held his staff with a greater confidence and no longer waited too long before moving, finally gaining the necessary muscle memory to move without needless thought. Even Raphael's anger had diminished.

So had Leonardo. When his siblings finished, cleaning up the dojo quickly before running out to watch their anime, Leonardo watched them go. Then slowly got his feet, favoring his arm, still shaking.

"No extra practice," Splinter said, rearranging the weaponry from where Michelangelo hung them up wrong. "You need to rest."

"I know, master," Leonardo said. There's no point in arguing. He pushed himself hard when he trained and crashing to the floor as he did weeks ago would leave him bleeding out.

He needed to rest. He needed to get better. Soon. It'd been over a month since he killed Baxter Stockman, depriving Oroku Saki of a valuable minion. Of course Saki would try for revenge. Or the Krang might attempt another invasion. Or an overlooked canister of mutagen could leave killer mutants running through the sewers.

There was no time to rest. But he couldn't afford to hurt himself again. He needed to heal. But there just wasn't time.

He opened his mouth.

Is there another way to fight? he wanted to ask. Without my swords? Without this wound getting in my way? Without the extra practice I'll have to put in just to try to measure up to them again?

He stopped himself before he could, instead going back to his room to sleep.

He dreamed of dark places, chasing his brothers' voices without finding them, and the burning pain of a knife constantly in his arm. When he woke, he stared at the shadows in a lightless room, wondering if—since Leonardo was now behind his siblings—if one of his brothers would be able to kill, same as he had. If they would be forced to that same kind of self-sacrifice.

The thought made him curl up around his arm, and he wondered when he'd be whole again.


	10. "We strike hard and fade away into the night."

As usual, every day they practiced and sparred. Leonardo rarely won. Did they know he kept losing because he was so far behind on his extra practice? By their drawn punches that he struggled to dodge, their pulled kicks that he had to resort to blocking, they must have thought he was still in pain.

They were right, of course. The cut had turned into a thin, raised scar like a half-moon stretched from wrist to elbow. The muscle still pulled too tight, and it ached in the cold air.

But still. They treated him like he'd collapse or faint from the slightest bruise. Even on a simple run across the rooftops, drinking in the night air he hadn't tasted in days, they formed a constant circle with him in the center.

Raphael put an arm over his shoulder, tentatively, afraid he might break. Leonardo half smiled, lowered his head. Their concern felt like pity, but at least it didn't feel like annoyance. They didn't act like he was slowing them down, and he breathed deep. He didn't realize how much he missed the city glowing in the dark, the cool wind over his skin and the small puffs of heat from vents and the sun-baked pavement. If he practiced hard, he could catch up...

He heard the soft scuff before they did, the slide of leather on cement, and he turned to face several Foot clan ninja leaping across from the other rooftop. He drew his swords-

And the clan disappeared behind a wall of his brothers all forming a line in front of him. He blinked, taking a step back, before he realized what just happened.

They were trying to protect him. But as they began the fight in earnest, parrying throwing stars and slowly pushing the Foot clan back, a cold chill spread through him. His brothers didn't even look over their shoulders, didn't even call out to him.

His swords slowly lowered, tips touching the concrete. Raphael ducked forward and Michelangelo rolled across his back, blocking one ninja from Raphael's blind side and leaving one Foot ninja to stumble into his fist. Donatello swept his staff above their heads, knocking out another ninja.

His brothers flowed together. They didn't even have to look at each other. And they certainly didn't have to look at him.

The hand grabbing his shoulder, yanking him backwards off the ledge, was a welcome distraction.

Leonardo twisted as he falls, snagging loose cloth in one hand. His weight and momentum dragged at his attacker, and there was a brief snap as the ninja almost managed to hang on. And then free fall—the walls and windows blurre—

They hit pavement hard. Bones cracked, but not Leonardo's. As Leonardo groaned, sitting up too fast, the ninja beside him coughed out blood and turned on his side, curling up.

"Not as durable, huh?" Leonardo grumbled, pressing against the side of his head. There was blood on his mask and his palm, tiny bits of gravel he had to brush away.

"Let's see just how 'durable' you are, freak."

Three more ninja dropped down from the roof, using the windows as handholds. Leonardo reached for his swords, found his sheaths empty and the pavement bare. Wherever his katana had fallen—under the dumpster? behind the open wire gate?—they were no use to him now.

Which left him with one smoke bomb and a handful of shuriken.

Thick smoke exploded out, filling the alley, pierced by his throwing stars flying out and Footclan shuriken flying in. All of them missed. He was already rolling and coming up on the closest wall, diving toward one in a tackle.

He was in luck-they expected him to run for the far wall. He caught one above the hip, sending him tumbling as he stabbed deep into the pelvic joint, and then he was up again, charging the next one.

Blood swung up from the shuriken, blinding the second ninja, and Leonardo winced as he shoved the sharp blade up into the cloth-covered belly. Fresh blood poured over his hand and he jerked back, leaving the throwing star inside his stumbling enemy.

A solid kick landed against his shoulder, throwing him into the corner of the dumpster. Steel slammed against his cheek. Before he realizes what he's hit, he dodges to the side while lights flash across his eyes. Cold pain swept across his face.

The street was tilting under his feet, he'd lost his only weapon, he couldn't see for all the lights—there was one light that wasn't a burst, a streak of motion that he darted toward. He closed the distance in time. The sword came down not on his head but on his shell, the pommel coming down on his shoulder as the blade met empty air.

He grunted, but he got his hands on his enemy and felt the thin edge of a sheath, found the hilt of a small knife on the ninja's belt.

Slow motion. The sword came up again-he pulled the knife clear—the sword buzzed through the air—

The knife sank into muscle. They both toppled over, Leonardo on top, and he stabbed blindly, furiously, trembling as the blade punched through bone, popped organs. It was like puncturing a wet, heavy balloon over and over again, and it refused to deflate despite the wheezing he could barely hear over his own frantic breath.

Faster now—he held the knife in both hands and stabbed in a frenzy, certain that he was about to die. Bursts of light in his eyes made it hard to see, dazzling and dizzying, and he stabbed pavement as often as the body that had stopped moving.

Slowly, too slow to help, the lights dimmed and disappeared, and he was left gasping, arms up, holding the knife in tight hands as he stared at the body under him.

A torn face, scraps of cloth and skin covered in blood, hid the mess of what lay beneath. A white gleam of bone and black cloth glistened wetly. It looked like a ripped doll. It looked like a dead man. It looked like concrete after a heavy rain.

Quiet. The alley was so quiet. Staring at the blood, he lowered his hands, and though it was too dark to see them clearly, he could make out the same glistening sheen on the knife, on his skin. The thick stench of coppery blood clung to everything. He tasted blood in the air.

"Leo!"

Scrambling backward, Leonardo hit his shell on the wall and stopped breathing. Without thinking about it, he slipped the knife back into his belt, an automatic motion bred from years of practice. He said nothing in response.

"Leo?"

Footsteps, the clap of a hand on bricks-his brothers coming down the side of the building and landing in front of him. Their movements roared in his ears. Didn't they hear themselves? He put his hands over his ears, and their voices muffled as they talked.

"See anything?" Donatello asked.

"Dead ninjas," Michelangelo said. Between two fingers, he gingerly lifted the torn remains of the last one's shirt, grimacing at the stab wounds. "Whoa. Really dead ninjas."

Raphael frowned and scanned the alley. There was nothing. Their own opponents were running back home to Shredder, nursing broken bones and cracked skulls, but this... A death rattle slipped out of the ninja on his side, and they all startled away from it.

"Leo!" Raphael looked up as if maybe they missed him on the way down. "Where are you?"

Leonardo watched them with wide eyes. Why were they looking around? Why didn't they see him? In the dumpster's shadow, under a fire escape and sheltered from the streetlamps, hidden from the moon, he was small enough to disappear entirely.

Raphael knelt and tilted the ruined body, trying to find any clues but inadvertently turning it to the outside light. Leonardo saw every wound he'd inflicted on it, and the world became a high pitched whine in his ears. His brothers said something else that he didn't hear, called his name again. As loud as they were, he barely heard the edges of their words. And then they were off again, running down the alley and out of sight.

For long minutes, Leonardo looked at the corpse. It stared back with one wide eye. The other eye socket was a dark smear. And then a red bubble slowly expanded out of its mouth, trembled, and popped in a soft mist.

The whine refused to fade, but he could breathe again. Shaking, freezing, swallowing bile—the only thing he could think was _I'm here_ over and over again—he pushed himself up along the wall until he was standing.

The streetlight glare hit his eyes, so he shielded his face with one arm. He half-expected the bodies to get up, to stumble towards him like broken puppets. But they were dead and didn't move, and with another breath that broke in the middle, he turned and started walking home.


	11. Funny thing about anger. Let it consume you and soon enough… you lose sight of everything.

Shell against the cool cement, head down, Leonardo sat slumped in the shower, water driving against the back of his head. The steady drone drowned out the memory of a knife plunging through muscle and scraping bone.

Light sparkled on the edge of the water, like silver in the dark. The lair was silent, empty. He didn't remember coming home or collapsing in the shower. The only light came from under the bathroom door. Was the television on? Or maybe the kitchen? He couldn't bring himself to go turn them off.

He leaned to one side and breathed. Each breath was a drop of water, and slowly the tension drained out of him but nothing replaced it. Hollow, he stared at the dark drops that shimmered along his hands. Splinter never told them that blood looked like wet blackness at night.

Voices. Bright light trickled in from under the door. His brothers were home, jabbering, with Splinter's quick "yame" to shut them up. Then silence. Deadly still, Leonardo barely flicked his gaze toward the light, then looked down again. They must have seen a clue, drops of blood. Or maybe they just heard the water.

The door opened. He didn't react except to shut his eyes against the flood of light.

Splinter called his name. Leonardo's body was too heavy to make himself move, to even look up. He could have slept for a year if they'd let him.

"Leonardo…" Splinter tried again, taking an abortive step inside. "Put down the knife."

Blinking once, slowly, stupidly, Leonardo had to think to look at his hands, to recognize the thing he was holding, to realize that he hadn't let go of the Foot clan knife this whole time. It was rinsed clean of blood. The only red left on it was the obvious clan symbol on the hilt.

"Leonardo?"

He exhaled heavily and slid the knife into his belt with the flick of long practice. He didn't bother to correct whatever Splinter thought, didn't try to defend himself from the way he'd unknowingly arranged himself.

"You're alive!" There were wet splats of feet as someone ran toward him. He tenses, and then Michelangelo threw himself at his brother, collapsing against Leonardo in a bear hug.

"Yow!"

Michelangelo shot back, leaning out of the spray, and turned and fumbled the shower knob until the water turned off. Shuddering, he put his hands on Leonardo's shoulders, holding tight and trying to look into his brother's eyes. Leonardo refused to react.

"Dude…why're you sitting in ice water, man?" Michelangelo frowned when he didn't receive a reply, and he held up his hand to find streaks of blood across his fingers. "Holy…"

"Then you were injured," Splinter said, coming in after and kneeling beside them.

"No," Leonardo finally said, his voice a low groan. He shifted as if he could actually stand up when he'd really be fine with falling asleep here. "None of it's mine."

Splinter paused, staring at him for a long moment, then pulled Michelangelo up to his feet. He waved Raphael and Donatello back from where they've shuffled in quietly.

"Go and take your brothers with you," Splinter said to Michelangelo. "I need to speak with him."

"Aww, but sensei—"

"Now." Splinter gave him a firm nudge and watched until he left, closing the door behind him. Pretending he didn't hear them pressing up against the door and shushing each other as they listen, he looked back at Leonardo, who was still watching the floor.

"Stand," Splinter ordered, rising and offering his hand. "Show me."

"I'm not—" Leonardo's voice creaked.

"You would not be the first ninja to come home wounded but feeling no pain," Splinter said. "I have to be sure."

Huffing, Leonardo didn't argue but ignored the offered help, gathering his legs underneath himself. As he leaned forward, hands on the floor, he found his elbows and knees locking, his shoulders stiffening so that he couldn't move. Hissing as his back ached, he sat back and finds the hand still held out to him.

With a grunt, he managed to grab Splinter's paw and, to his relief, his father held tight and lifted him up fully, catching him as he staggers.

"Why's it hurt this bad?" Leonardo breathed, leaning on his arm. "They didn't get me at all."

"You fell off a roof," Splinter said. "Found yourself in heated battle against three enemies. And this…"

Splinter ran a finger gently down the middle of Leonardo's face, a long line that started between his eyes and stopped at his jaw. Leonardo flinched under even so light a touch.

"Struck something hard?" Splinter wondered. "Like the edge of a window or—?"

"Corner of a dumpster," Leonardo remembered. "Saw stars for a few minutes."

"No wonder you preferred cold water," Splinter said "Do you remember coming home?"

"…not really." He looked up at last, meeting Splinter's gaze. "That's bad, isn't it?"

"Not good," Splinter said, "but not necessarily bad, either. Come—you'll sleep in my room tonight, and we'll dress those bruises before they spread even further. And you can tell me what you remember."

He took Leonardo at a slow pace, opening the and sidestepping the pile of turtles that spills out. Leonardo pretended he didn't see their looks following them, ignoring Raphael's hand on his shoulder, Donatello's stuttering question at his heels.

_You did this,_ he wanted to say. _Turned your shells on me. Look what happened._

It wasn't fair, he knew. He would have even done the same if it had been Michelangelo or Donatello or Raphael hurt instead of him. They were just trying to protect him. This resentment wasn't fair.

But with every throb of each bruise, each painful thud of his heartbeat in his veins, he remembered not the falling, not the fear or the panicked killing in the alley, but the sudden loneliness of facing three shells.


	12. "Seek victory, not fairness."

Halfway through the night, Leonardo's eyes opened as he grew aware of agonizing pain along his entire side and across his face, pulsing in time with his heartbeat. He lay still for a moment, wincing as the pain came into focus as he fully woke up.

He wasn't in his bedroom. There, when he closed his door, the room became pitch black with all outside light shut out. Here, however, white light shone on a thin tree. Master Splinter's room?

A memory—a row of shells before him—freefalling backwards, the terrible open space and rush of air just before he hit pavement—blood on his hands—the drone of water on his shell—

Yes. Splinter's room.

His labored breath grew louder in his ears. Too loud. He couldn't stand it. He was used to being quiet. With some effort, he made himself breathe easier, softer. The whole room was silent except for the faint rumble of cars overhead. So close to the human world, but no one ever looked down.

Wide awake, he wouldn't be falling asleep again any time soon, so he bit back the soreness and sat up. His blanket fell across his lap. The pain pills were in the bathroom, farther than he was willing to try to walk, and he'd taken too many pills anyway. Nothing he could do but try to shut the pain out of his mind.

He moved to gather his legs under himself, then yelped as a sharp stab shot through his thigh and calf. Thinking he'd find blood, he felt along the length of his bruised leg and found nothing but heat as his body tried to mend itself. Was that what Splinter meant about not knowing if he was injured?

Moving more slowly, he arranged himself crosslegged and let his shoulders slump. His body tried to stiffen and lock up, and he had to roll his neck to keep the cramp from settling in. Then his hands hung off his lap, he closed his eyes, and—

—a row of shells—bones crunching—wet chops of a knife in flesh—

The memory was so vivid that he expected the body to be in front of him. Releasing a shaky breath, he leaned forward and rested his head in his hands.

There was a rustle of cloth, the slide of a tail on the foor. Splinter's way of letting him know that he was awake, that Leonardo was not alone.

"It was a good idea," Splinter said. "But you are too distracted for meditation tonight. Here."

Leonardo looked up and found his master's outstretched hand offering pills and a glass of water. A moment passed before he realized that they were for him, and he took them in one hand, keeping his bruised arm still in his lap.

The pills were bitter going down, and he drank slowly to ease the taste. It was just tap water, but it was cold, and with his whole body overheated as he healed, it felt like a cool river rushing through him. Another hour would pass before the pills really kicked in, but if he was lucky, he'd fall asleep before then.

He shivered. Usually the lair was warm, but night air crept in with the moonlight. Drawing the blanket around his shoulders, he watched Splinter light a few candles to cut the chill. Firelight flickered between them, throwing long shadows on the walls.

"Master Splinter…?" Leonardo said softly. "You once said that I shouldn't seek fairness. I should seek victory."

"Yes," Splinter said.

"Then…what else should I not seek?" He shook his head at the awkward wording, sounding stupid to himself. "Victory…winning means I stay alive, but…"

Kneeling, Splinter waved out the match, smoking curling around him. "I understand your meaning. Is victory worth any price? If we may sacrifice notions of fair play, what else may we push aside so that we win?"

"Yes!" Leonardo nodded once, wincing as it made his headache worse. "Is it better to have some kind of honor and…well…?"

"Lose?" Splinter finished for him. "Make no mistake, Leonardo. We are not samurai. We do not follow their code of bushido or their notions of honor. And what we, as practicing ninja, find honorable will fly in the face of much of what the world calls honor."

"Then…" Leonardo looked askance, unsure of his next question. "What is our honor?"

"You know what it is," Splinter said patiently. "Put aside the notions of honor you see on your television programs. Your honor is your loyalty to your clan. Loyalty to your family. To keep them safe, to protect them. No matter what we do or who we save, ultimately it is your family, your brothers, who you owe allegiance to."

"And them?" Leonardo asked, eyeridges furrowing, his jaw setting. "I'm supposed to protect them. What are they supposed to do?"

Splinter watched him for a moment, gauging his expression, then sighed. "I understand your frustration. When they explained what happened, I tried to make clear how that would have affected you. Or them, if positions had been reversed. But they are not used to the burden you face and did not realize how 'protecting' you inadvertently let the Foot clan single you out."

Silence. Leonardo considered everything his sensei said, struck at how Splinter can cut to the core of his dilemma.

A row of shells. His brothers' backs to him. Nothing would have happened if they hadn't blocked him out first.

"Did they tell you about the body?" he asked softly.

"I saw it," Splinter said. "When we were looking for you."

Leonardo said nothing. He doesn't know what to ask, let alone how to word the question.

"There is no shame in it," Splinter said after a moment. "It was your first kill in such heated battle. That kind of fighting does things to a person, overwhelms them. I was simply glad you were not dead on the ground beside them."

Nodding once, Leonardo still said nothing. Splinter touched his good shoulder, giving it a faint squeeze, then adjusted himself on his futon for meditation. His eyes shut. In a moment, his breathing became even.

The pills finally kicked in. As the pain faded, exhaustion washed over Leonardo again, dragging him like lead down to his pillow. With one blanket still around his shoulders, a second fluttered over him, warm and comforting as he drowsed.

A heated battle. That's all it was. In time, he would get used to it. He remembered the adrenalin rush of his first fight, after all. He was a ninja, not a samurai, and ninja kill when they have to. To protect his brothers. To protect his friends and family. And finally to protect himself.

Seek victory. Not fairness.

Victory. Not honor.

In his restless dreams, it was not the blood that upset him but the row of shells.


	13. "Kill with a borrowed knife"

The whole side of his body turned dark.

"Deep bruising," Splinter said. "Bone bruising, even."

Leonardo learned to gently press his hands against his thigh down to his calf, breaking up clots of bad blood, lightly plying his fingertips along the thin spaces of his ankle. He learned that pain doesn't mean rest but lighter exercise. That head injuries didn't always mean concussion but always meant headaches for days.

Waking up a few times to take another pill or to try to find a comfortable position, he grew more and more aware of the silence in his sensei's room. The occasional tail twitch in meditation, the soft turn of a page, even the distant hum of cars overhead didn't break the stillness, only accented it. He struggled not to make a sound, horribly aware of his own breathing, the brush of his hand across the futon.

As he turned on his good side, wincing as his sore muscles pull no matter how he tried to keep them still, he learned how boring pain can be. Between blissful bouts of unconsciousness, the minutes awake stretched like hours. He watched a small leaf slip off its stem and float between the branches, drifting back under a twig, then tumbling forward, all in slow motion. It seemed to tumble down for days, and he fell asleep before it lands.

The next day, a pile of books appeared beside him. He napped through the morning and only braved moving his right arm at lunchtime. The movement pulled in a way that nearly brought him to tears, but Splinter called it good for him. Because he couldn't sleep forever, Leonardo spent the rest of the day slowly reading.

Over the years, Splinter had collected enough books to fill several shelves--some of it stolen from trash heaps, some of it stolen from poorly alarmed thrift stores, most of it boring. _The Three Kingdoms, Norton Edition: World Literature, Combat Field Medicine_ …the print was tiny, the pages thin and the pictures dry and technical.

On one cover, however, a tiger fought a lion while they fell off a cliff. That looked cool. He perked up a little and grits his teeth, willingly putting up with the pain to pull the book over. _Thirty-Six Stratagems_ …sounded like another boring manual, but when he opened it up, there were more pictures inside.

A man in a black mask stole money from a house swallowed by fire. A beautiful courtesan hid her face with her fan and a knife behind her back. A Mongol army charged an open gate.

Leonardo frowned. The pictures made no sense—they didn't seem to go together. On the page opposite each illustration, instead of historical explanation, a short paragraph didn't even fill up the page. He looked under the pictures, each one underlined by a title and brief description.

"Rob a burning house," he murmured, reading to himself. "When turmoil strikes your enemy, do not let by the opportunity to attack."

He turned the page to see an army crossing a bridge under a cloud. "Deceive heaven to cross the ocean. Craft an illusion to disguise your intentions."

"Ah, you've found the _Thirty-Six Stratagems_ ," Splinter said, coming in with a tray of tea.

"What is it?" Leonardo asked. He used his left arm to push himself up, sighing in relief as Splinter turned and helped nudge him up with his knee. "Ow—thanks. I don't get it. It's supposed to be a training manual, right?"

Splinter chuckled as he set down the cups, serving the tea. Steam rose up between them, and as Leonardo curled his fingers around the book, he focused on the rising white vapors. Lifting the mug of hot tea will hurt, and he took deep breaths as he readied himself.

"Let it cool first," Splinter said, setting the pot aside. "To answer your question, yes, it is a training manual. It is also a philosophy on war. I thought, since some of the examples are so near to your Space Heroes, that you would find it more interesting than my other books."

Leonardo blinked, then opened the book up one handed. "The Beauty Trap—a beautiful woman can befuddle leaders, sow dissension and cause enemy women to plot intrigue…"

Sighing, Splinter shaked his head. "Admittedly, it is not the best translation."

"No, no," Leonardo said quickly. "I remember this. Celestial almost got the Federation codes from Captain Ryan. It was only 'cause he was so dedicated that he wasn't swayed by her."

The book suddenly gained new respect in his eyes. _Sacrifice the plum tree to save the peach tree_ —wasn't that just like when Captain Ryan nobly sacrificed a ship full of orphans to the Seven Maw Spiders of Zaara so that he and his army could safely attack the Nebulons? Or _Hide a knife behind a smile_ —that's exactly how Captain Ryan tricked the Talosians into signing a peace treaty before wiping them all out with his ship's laser canon.

_Deceive heaven to cross the ocean_ …

Leonardo was reminded of the woman he saw, the strange figure from the rooftop who appeared and vanished. Of the Foot clan, who always seemed to come out of the shadows, out of where he wasn't looking.

When he drank his tea, he flinched at the drops of hot liquid that splashed on his hand, trembling with effort to hold himself up. He would be stuck here recovering for several days, but perhaps that was for the best. He had used smoke bombs before, attacked from the shadows and hidden from enemies only inches away, but this…this was something new. The woman showed him a new way to move, and Splinter has codified it into something he can learn and practice.

If he was going to be ignored anyway, it would be on his terms.


	14. "Midnight stroll?"

Even a leader must follow the rules. Even the eldest couldn't argue with their father. Even Leonardo obeyed their Master.

All of which combined into a hard knot in his stomach as he snuck out of the lair.

He had to practice, but these skills were not something he could learn at home. He needed to find fluidity in shadow, but he couldn't do that with his brothers beside him. He didn't even know how he was going to learn. How should he train to hide? Most of all…

Leonardo didn't want his brothers to see him.

Poor Leonardo who couldn't keep up. Slow Leonardo who had to hide. Weak Leonardo who needed protecting.

Some things could not be taught in the dojo. Stealth could not be learned at the mat with kata steps in rigid form. To avoid their eyes, to learn to exist outside of their gaze…he slipped out as they slept and set out to learn the city.

New York at night glowed, throwing light like shadows so that the streets turned into burning canals banked by blackened alleys, fire escapes lit by lonely gold lamps. He eased past the flashes of light, finding a chaotic rhythm in the way the darkness waved. He retreated, ran from swinging beams of a speeding car, then swept back like smoke and ash.

New York at night rolled like water. The shadows never stayed still, but that was good. Using the long edge of darkness from a moving car, he bridged across a lit road and no one saw him. The humans had no idea he was there. And when the shadow moved, he cartwheeled with it, invisible in the midst of the crowd.

If he favored his hurt arm, no one saw. If he winced as the torn muscle pulled against the bandage, no one saw. If he was less than perfect, no one saw.

When he tired and returned home, trembling but smiling and collapsing into bed, he felt as if he'd learned a new facet of the city full of new crevices and new ledges.

During the day, his brothers hovered, still guilty, sure that he would rip open if they touched him too hard or looked away for too long. Splinter seemed to know he had done something that, if not wrong, was not tacitly allowed. Leonardo feigned sleep, easy when his body ached from his secret training.

Lying in bed, facing the wall, he listened to their soft footsteps outside his door. They each looked in, assuring themselves that he was breathing, that he was not curled in on himself in pain. His wardens swept back and forth across what felt more and more like a prison cell, all the worse for how unfair he knew his thoughts were.

They cared. They tried not to hurt him. That was what made their whispers—

"He's okay?"

"No nightmares, hasn't gotten up."

—so much worse.

At three in the morning, he knew he shouldn't slip out.

Glowing red clock numbers lit the way as he crept past their doors and out of the lair, breaking into a run as soon as he was sure they wouldn't hear him sprinting through the tunnels. He'd only have an hour, maybe two. Splinter woke up so early that when the sky turned even one shade lighter, Leonardo would have to come home.

The scent of the ocean breeze pushing out the smog, clearing the sky, was worth the risk. The city lights blocked the stars and he leaned on a cement ledge, staring out over the rippling moonlight beneath the bridge.

He crossed his hands at the wrist, relaxing as the wind tugged at his mask and mixed with hot vapors off the roof vents. No one could see him up here. The roof access threw a long shadow where he was standing, and the spinning wind turbines drew the eye of anyone that happened to look his way.

Splinter showed them a few ways of hiding in shadows, but Leonardo now felt as if he'd found a way to disappear completely. He could stand there all night and no one would ever see him. The rules of staying unseen were simple now that he knew about them, and once he had some practice during the day, he was sure he'd feel completely at ease moving around in sunlight. Trickier, but the fundamental rules were the same.

Don't move. People naturally spot movement.

Know what lies between. If he could duck behind something, he could be at arm's length and stay safely hidden.

And finally, melt into the environment. All sound must mask his own breath and footsteps. A noise, a motion, anything that would distract anyone who might spot him.

With a little more practice, he looked forward to showing his siblings what he'd found out—

A glint caught his eye. Ducking reflexively, he peered over the roof ledge, grasping the rough corners to steady himself.

Paranoid, he scolded himself. His brothers couldn't have noticed he was gone, not yet, not yet, it was too early—

His heart sank. Raphael, Donatello, Michelangelo, all running along the rooftops, obviously looking down to the street, leaping up onto water towers and air conditioner units, staring across the line of the city. Not even an hour—Leonardo felt his chest tighten. Not even an hour, and worse, they knew he's out. Splinter would be furious.

Tempted to rush home and slide into bed and pretend he never left, he sighed, lowering his head. There was no point delaying the inevitable scolding and punishment.

Something heavy flew over his head, followed closely by two shadows that he felt more than saw. And he froze.

Five Foot Clan ninja had landed around him, clinging to the ledge and roof access door. They readjusted their grips, fingertips sliding against concrete, their breathing hushed. Leonardo felt the warmth from their bodies, the cloth of a black uniform as the ninja brushed against him, mistaking him for part of the pipes beneath them.

He was surrounded and they didn't know he was there.


	15. "How long can a lone wolf last?"

Leonardo could not make a sound without alerting the Foot ninja around him. They were so close. So close...if he put his hand out, he could grab one's ankle. How couldn't they hear him breathing? Couldn't they even just sense his presence, sense something living crouching in the darkness beside them?

His whole body felt locked in place, and he set his jaw and forced himself to tense into readiness. If he moved, they'd slaughter him. If he hesitated, they'd slaughter his brothers.

So he moved, putting a throwing star in the spine of the furthest figure.

Ah, they weren't androids. That would make the fight easier. His victim toppled off the ledge without a groan. Karai darted away before her dead ninja dropped out of sight, but her soldiers startled, pausing for half a second and making themselves easy targets. In one movement, he put a star in another ninja's neck, a third in one's ribs. He was surprised by how little blood there was.

He didn't see the knife—the black blade didn't flash or gleam—before it passed his face, a hair's breath from his eyes. Karai raised another knife, sent it flying on the heels of the first, and Leonardo learned that stealth meant more than simply hiding. Scuttling backward, he pressed himself into deeper shadow and dodged another knife, reaching into his belt, finding his smoke pellets—

Karai evaporated.

He looked around wildly—she had used no smoke bomb, no flash grenade, but she was gone. How—?

A knife sank into his hand and into the steel pipe behind him.

At first he felt nothing, only the strange sense that his hand couldn't move. Then the pain washed in from his back to his arm, building up in an explosion in his palm and fingers. He couldn't breathe, let alone scream, and he bent forward until his arm jerked tight, pinned by the blade.

Shuriken peppered the wall behind him where his head had been. Adrenalin sickened him to his stomach and filled him with painful urgency. Swallowing his rising nausea, he reached up and grasped the hilt, then pulled the knife and his hand free.

Shock brought with it a clarity—quiet, hushing even the wind, with only his heartbeat and breath in his ears. His brothers' voices as they passed, oblivious to the fight. And the faint movement to the right, Karai easing closer to his hiding spot. He couldn't afford the luxury of giving into the pain.

So this, then, was a lesson as well.

He flung back the knife. She yelled, but he didn't stop to see if she was wounded. The shadow of the ledge wrapped around the corner of the roof, and he crept around with it, his hand clutched tight against his plastron. Then down the fire escape, across the alley, burrowing himself deep into the darkness. With a whispered curse, he looked down each end of the alley.

Alone. Cursing again, he ripped off his mask and wound it around his hand, grimacing as he held it shut as tight as he could.

He couldn't hide this. His brothers would see. His father would see. He'd screwed up, failed so badly—

No.

Even in the haze of pain, he knew this had been a lesson. He had learned something new, something vital. Stealth didn't mean hiding in shadow. Like Karai, he could simply stand where his enemy was not looking. He could move. He _had_ to move. Not moving was death.

He sat alone in the dark for some time, growing accustomed to the burning cold held in his hand. When his legs didn't shake and moving didn't make him want to vomit, he slid up the wall and stood unsteadily, then breathed deep and walked, shoulder against the bricks, to the closest tunnel back to the lair.

* * *


	16. "Remember, to be a true ninja, you must become one with the shadows."

The bulb in the dojo had burned out, but a lack of light was no reason to postpone practice. Instead Splinter had them add candles to the space around the incense. In rows, dozens of candles provided wavering light and threw their shadows on the far wall. The dojo felt smaller than usual, with the edges of the room not dark but dim.

Sidelined at practice again, Leonardo sat to Splinter's left, staring at a spot on the mat so he didn't have to meet his sensei's stern look. Sitting next to him, Donatello leaned forward, trying to see his face and grimacing when he couldn't. They didn't know what to think anymore. Sacrificing himself for his brothers was one thing, but to sneak out at night, endangering himself and forcing his brothers to search for him... This wasn't their dutiful, wounded brother anymore.

Once again, Leonardo has staggered home bleeding, and he sat now with his hand swathed in bandages in his lap. As soon as he arrived, Splinter had caught him up without a word, taking him to the bathroom to clean the wound, to inspect for poison. To pack the gouged flesh with clean gauze and stitch the skin back together. To wrap him in a blanket and prepare hot chicken soup so that Leonardo could finally relax, let his shoulders drop, unclench his hand so he didn't threaten to pull out the stitches.

Splinter didn't demand an explanation. Leonardo suspected that his father knew exactly what had happened, though he couldn't bring himself to ask and risk his father's disappointed scolding. So he sat still through breakfast and sat quiet at practice, watching Raphael mop the floor with Michelangelo.

Not literally. But close. Michelangelo needed to learn to let go of the staff when Raphael caught the other end of it.

"Stop hanging on!" Donatello called out from Splinter's other side, covering his face with his hand. "That's not how you—just let go and roll away!"

"Michelangelo," Splinter sighed, and he thumped his cane for emphasis. "This is not amusing."

Michelangelo's yelling stopped so suddenly that Raphael startled and lost his balance, falling beside his little brother, who turned on his side and posed like a swimsuit model.

"Aww, but it was my best impression of a mop!" Michelangelo looked at Leonardo as if hoping he might laugh. Instead Michelangelo's smile faded slightly.

"Do not emulate a mop," Splinter said his voice holding infinite patience. "Emulate water."

"Huh?" Michelangelo said, tilting his head in confusion.

"That oughta be easy for him," Raphael said as he pushed himself back up. "He's already a drip."

Splinter lectured over Michelangelo's offended squawk, cutting in before his sons could begin squabbling in earnest.

"Water can become anything. Put water into a cup, and it becomes the cup. Put water into a teapot—it becomes the teapot."

Leonardo recognized the lecture. Bruce Lee, from his book about Jeet Kun Do. It was one of the books Leonardo had read while recovering in Splinter's room. At his father's side, Leonardo silently mouthed along.

"Water can flow, or it can crash. Be water."

Michelangelo made a face. "So...I should be the water _on_ the mop?"

"There's no way he can be this dense," Donatello said, glancing at Leonardo as if for confirmation. "Right? He's not really this dense?"

Leonardo didn't answer. He'd only just read that book, mostly skimming while drifting in and out of sleep, and he wasn't sure of how the idea worked. Be water? In a fight? That sounded like the flow of a duel, dodging strikes while waiting for your enemy to make a mistake.

He looked at Michelangelo, still on the floor. To give up control of the staff when Raphael grabbed it? Or maybe to yield, to give in and follow Raphael's movements until an opportune time to strike. Which Michelangelo had done. Leonardo blinked. From how fast his little brother had moved, holding onto the staff and then stopping so that Raphael fell...

"No," Leonardo murmured. "He isn't dense at all."

The fight was water. The shadows were water. All he had to do was follow the flow.

"Michelangelo," Splinter said, "sit. I will try to illustrate this idea for all of you. Leonardo."

Blinking, he looked up with wide eyes. "Master?"

"Join Raphael on the mat. You will dodge his strikes. Do not allow him to touch you at all."

Leonardo hesitated for a moment. Did Splinter mean for him to fall, for all of them to feel even more pity than they already held for him? Or was Splinter trying to gauge exactly what Leonardo had learned outside of the lair?

He took a breath. He trusted his master; Splinter would never want to see him fail. Nodding decisively, he got to his feet, swaying slightly as he held his hand close to his plastron.

His brothers balked. Donatello leaned forward, reaching out to stop him, and Michelangelo's jaw dropped as he scrambled to get to his feet. Raphael shook his head, hands up, even taking a step back.

"Whoa, master, hang on!" Raphael said. "Leo's hurt. I mean, come on! His arm's still healing and now his hand—"

A row of shells.

"I'm not made of glass." Leonardo deliberately let his wounded hand rest against his side, as if it had casually fallen there and didn't need the support of his belt's edge.

"You're hurt," Raphael repeated. "If I tag you hard, it might rip the stitches and—"

"You won't hit me," Leonardo said. Firmly, with his glare settling against his brother.

Raphael grimaced. "I don't wanna."

"But if you're afraid you'll lose..." Leonardo said, letting his voice trail off.

Raphael's grimace twisted. His hands curled up into fists, then let go again. He'd been practicing harder to become a better ninja, to safeguard his brother so sacrifice wasn't needed. He hadn't meant to wound Leonardo's pride, but that had been a mistake. How dare his brother try to needle his own pride. Worse, he might have given in if he hadn't seen Leonardo's hand press a little harder against his shell.

"You're right," Raphael said, meeting his look. "I don't wanna lose. So we ain't gonna fight."

Startled, Leonardo stood a little straighter. Raphael couldn't... No. No, Raphael didn't mean that. He couldn't believe Leonardo might win a fair fight. But then why say that?

"Raph—?"

"I don't wanna hurt you," Raphael said. "Again. Please."

That's not fair, Leonardo thought, lowering his gaze. How was he supposed to stay angry at Raphael if he said that? And if their positions were reversed, wouldn't he refuse the fight, too?

"You won't hurt me," Leonardo said, lifting his head again. "I promise."

And before Raphael could argue again, Leonardo threw down a handful of smoke pellets, filling the center of the mat with a billowing thick smoke. And when it cleared, Leonardo was gone.

Raphael waved the last wisps of smoke from his face as he turned, searching for where his brother had gone. When Leonardo didn't reappear, Raphael whipped around, certain he was behind him. And then looked up toward the ceiling. By Donatello and Michelangelo, both seated beside Splinter.

Their surprise was his only clue. All three stared at something just past his shoulder—

He turned, arm out, feeling nothing but the air moving past his hand. The back of his neck prickled as if someone was standing too close. He turned again, and this time he spotted the tiniest flutter of blue cloth out of the corner of his eye. Leonardo was behind him—had to be, but no matter how Raphael turned, how much he craned his neck or looked over his shoulder, he couldn't catch more than a blur of green or blue.

Finally Raphael crouched low on hands and knees, and he tilted his head back. He could see to either side in his peripheral sight. He watched the ceiling tilt over him. This time Leonardo had no way to go, no escape...

Nothing.

Raphael looked around. Leonardo was nowhere. He would have sworn the mat was empty except for himself. He looked back at his brothers to see if they knew where Leonardo was—

They stared at him as if he was stupid. Michelangelo even had his hands pressed on his mouth, trying to hold back laughter. Donatello's gaze flickered from Raphael to his brothers at his side, shifting his gaze between them several times to draw Raphael's attention to—

Raphael froze.

Three brothers.

Leonardo knelt beside Donatello and Michelangelo, a faint smile warring with the tight lines of pain around his eyes. Staying out of sight, swift and silent, had left him breathing hard, but Leonardo lifted his head with the deep pride of figuring out a puzzle that had confused him for far too long.

"How'd you...?" Raphael said. "You were behind me!"

Leonardo nodded. "And then I just sat down where you were weren't looking."

Raphael blinked, processing that, then turned toward Splinter. "Is that fair? That's totally not fair!"

"Value victory, not fairness," Splinter said in a weary tone, repeating an old lesson.

"So the test was to hide," Michelangelo said, counting off the points on his fingers. "And Leo hid...just like water filling up the test and mopping the floor with Raph!"

"He did not mop the floor with me," Raphael started as he crouched and lunged at Michelangelo.

As the two of them rolled across the floor in a playful brawl, Splinter stood and tapped his cane on the floor. The hour was early—practice usually lasted another hour—but there was only so much that a sensei could take.

"That is enough for today," he said, gratified that Raphael and Michelangelo stopped in midpunch. "Clean up the dojo and complete your chores before dinner."

"Hai sensei!" They all stood and snapped sharp bows, and each of them moved to their usual task. As Michelangelo grabbed a real mop to clean up sweat and blood, Donatello gathered their training weapons and set them back in their racks, dusting the wooden stands for good measure.

Raphael washed off and polished the mirror, a huge chunk of glass that they'd smoothed the edges of. Heavy to move, it needed a firm hand to keep from falling over, and every day it seemed to attract most of the dust in the room.

In the mirror's reflection, as he polished it dry, he spotted Leonardo standing by the candles. Several dozen flames lined the shelves, providing the dojo with light that faded slowly. That part of the room was hot, almost intolerable after a hard workout, but Leonardo never argued about this chore, finding something fascinating in the flickering fire and thin lines of smoke.

As usual, Leonardo removed the stub of incense, then emptied the burner and added fresh sand and a new stick. He couldn't help inhaling the next scent, purple, so it had to be plum blossom. Then, one by one, Leonardo began to blow out each candle.

Splinter drew beside him, hand falling on his son's shoulder. Something about his tense grip, the way Splinter didn't let go immediately, drew Leonardo's look.

"Did I do something wrong?" he asked.

"...no." Splinter shook his head. "But nonetheless, I am worried about you."

"I said I wouldn't go out again—" Leonardo started.

"Not that," Splinter said, "although your promise does relieve some of my worry. But I am concerned at how you have changed the focus of your study."

Leonardo didn't answer. Behind them, Michelangelo and Donatello finished their chores and rushed out, eager for gaming and tinkering. Raphael followed, hesitating at the door so he could hear.

"I have noticed your reluctance to practice," Splinter continued. "Your discouragement as your brothers progress while you heal."

Again, Leonardo didn't answer. At the door, Raphael frowned and tried to think back. His brother had been quiet these past weeks, either asleep or reading in Splinter's room. He hadn't practiced much at all, joining them in the dojo but held back not only from combat but even from routines that might tear at his arm. Raphael's satisfaction at becoming even better, at learning to fight alongside Donatello and Michelangelo as a team, now seemed to fade as he remembered Leonardo kneeling beside Splinter.

Smiling, encouraging them and obviously proud of them. But grounded while they'll advanced.

Raphael flinched.

"I don't understand," Leonardo said, frustration edging into his voice. "I did good. He couldn't see me at all. Mikey and Don didn't notice at first, either."

"Your performance was excellent," Splinter said. "You have grasped at the heart of stealth in a way I had not expected, not this early."

Praise, and yet Splinter paused.

"But you don't like it," Leonardo said, filling the silence.

"I do not like how it has consumed you," Splinter corrected. "Stealth is important, but it can become too tempting, too easy to hide. Do not allow yourself to fall into this trap."

"'Trap'?" Leonardo echoed him as if the word was foreign. "It's not a trap. I can walk out any time."

Splinter's hand tightened, then slid free.

"I hope so," he said. "I do not want to lose you."

Leonardo turned, watching him pass the door and Raphael, who met his look. Annoyed that Raphael had heard, Leonardo waved out the rest of the candles, plunging the dojo into complete darkness.

Raphael did not see him leave.


	17. "I know that Leo and I have been fighting a lot but... we are brothers and brothers do fight. But we protect each other and that's what counts the most in my life."

Something was wrong. They all knew it, but they could not put a name to it, nothing more than a nameless dread, a vague sense of unease. The feeling that something loomed over them, hovering at the edge of the dojo. Something subtly wrong. Something subtly broken.

Raphael, in his more frustrated moments, named the 'something' Leonardo.

Their elder brother, once eager to practice, now avoided sparring altogether. The few times that Splinter had prodded him into actual combat, Leonardo had stumbled, pulled a wound, fallen as he suddenly lost balance. Scar tissue pulled before he expected it. Something about his right leg simply hadn't healed right from the fall off the roof. In their tai chi and katas, Leonardo learned to compensate, to shift his balance in a new way, to sweep and dodge instead of meet a blow head on, but the learning came slow. Frustratingly slow.

Raphael had whispered, out of sight and alone with Michelangelo, that Leonardo had turned into the A minus team.

But it was not simply the change in Leonardo setting them on edge. As the lair grew quieter, their fights against the Foot clan grew more frenetic and brutal. Blood had been spilled, and Shredder's forces seemed determined to have a turtle join the body count.

Which made it harder for Raphael not to interfere when ninjas surrounded his older brother. Hard not leap in front of him, block the knives pointed at Leonardo's face before they came down. His brother seemed able to hold his own in real combat, but back alley fights were blood baths with split second decisions, and Raphael had begun to doubt his brother's ability.

When Leonardo came down too hard from a lunge, landing on all fours instead of his feet, a seeming swarm of black figures came in swiftly, dropping from the fire escapes, blocking off any escape from either side of the alley. Leonardo darted to one side as shuriken peppered the pavement, the side of his shell scratched as a blade grazed him. He came up too fast, gasping as he put too much weight on his left leg and buckled, dropping him down—

Raphael turned from his fight, throwing his sai and hoping, just hoping it would catch the spear bearing down on his brother—

—and Leonardo's drop had been a feint. The sai flew between him and his enemy without effect. The spear came down where Leonardo's head would have been if he'd stood properly, plunging instead into the brick wall over his shoulder. Leonardo seemed to slowly touch the ninja's side, under the ribs, and his hand turned a dark red as blood flowed down his arm.

The sai landed uselessly in a puddle. The ninja fell with a groan. And Leonardo was moving again, turning toward Raphael, throwing—

The knife flew over Raphael's shoulder. There was a shriek, and Raphael turned to see another Foot ninja collapsing behind him.

Dammit. Raphael cursed himself as he turned around, already knowing what he'd see. Leonardo glaring at him, an open wound of bleeding pride and self-righteous anger. Then nothing as Leonardo found a shadow and wrapped himself up in it, retreating from Raphael's concern and continuing the rest of the fight where no one could see him.


	18. Life at best is bittersweet!

Everything could be fixed. Every problem had a solution. Every lock had a key. So when Leonardo slowly began to fade, Donatello wondered not at the 'why' but at the 'how'. How to fix his brother's shame? How to solve his growing reluctance? How to open up the wounded creature and find his confident, vibrant brother inside?

The solution refused to come easily. When Donatello fixed a clock, the clock did not try to squirm out of his hands and hide. Leonardo, however, refused to hold still, drifting farther and farther out of the light. Leonardo was not as stealthy as he liked to imagine, not yet, but Donatello could see the day coming when he would be. Some future date, Leonardo would be a shape in the shadows, no longer the eager—heck, even cocky teenager at his side.

But it didn't take an engineer to see that Leonardo's springs had wound as tight as they'd go, and something was breaking on the inside. Something in Leonardo wasn't working the way it should.

Donatello, when he tried to guess the something's name, called it "pride."

If pride was the problem, the obvious solution was a confidence boost. Donatello sparred against Leonardo, intent on throwing the fight...only for his brother to stumble and fall first. He tried to praise his sibling's resilience—

"I don't think I could keep going the way you have."

—his skill—

"so you can really hide in an empty room?"

—his resolve—

"I-I think you killed another one today..."

But Leonardo didn't seem proud of any of that. He meditated. Studied. Read. Lost sparring matches. Disappeared afterward.

Donatello tried to chase him down. It wasn't easy. Leonardo studied them as intently as he studied Splinter's books, and he'd learned how to move behind them so they didn't notice. How to slip through the living room and into the kitchen to raid the refrigerator even with Michelangelo and Raphael guarding the leftover pizza and gyoza.

And in a fight, how to come in close enough to use the Foot knife still tucked in his belt.

Donatello was sure that stupid knife was part of the problem, but he wan't sure how. It was just a knife. He'd even examined it while Leonardo slept. Black blade, black handle, little red insignia. It was hard to see at night. Maybe that was why Leonardo favored it so much.

Sometimes, when Donatello repaired a clock, it wasn't the same as it was before. It ticked a little softer, it ran a little faster. Leonardo sat beside him in the dojo and watched them spar, his hand pressing the scar along his arm. Donatello had to remind himself that they were lucky he was still alive. The thought was sweetly bitter.

He wasn't used to a problem that would rather not be fixed.


	19. "It can't be fun, always being the responsible one."

Michelangelo knew his plan was a long shot. Tricky—it could fail a thousand different ways. So he waited until practice was done for the day, making sure that Donatello was tucked away in his lab and that Raphael had claimed the couch all to himself, before he headed to Leonardo's room and plopped down on the floor.

On the bed, Leonardo raised an eyeridge over his book. He stared at his brother, then glanced back at the pages, torn about whether to keep reading or wait for his brother to speak first. He hesitated a moment, waiting for his little brother to say what he wanted. When nothing came, he prodded slightly.

"Did you need something?" Leonardo asked, hoping it wouldn't be something like a volunteer to try an experimental pizza.

"You've been reading a lot," Michelangelo said, and he flopped over on his side and picked out a book. "I wanted to see what books these are."

"Just ones from Master Splinter's collection," Leonardo said.

The silence stretched as Michelangelo turned a page. Then another. Leonardo tried to look back at his own book, On War by von Clausevitz, but the work was difficult enough without having a little brother on the floor beside him. He kept looking over the top of the page, frowning as Michelangelo ignored him.

Five minutes later, Leonardo had to admit that his brother was really reading. With an irritated huff, he marked his place and set On War down on his "to do" pile. He stared at the wall, not really sure what to do now, and noticed Michelangelo looking over the pile of books he'd already finished.

"Book of Five Rings, the Battle of Thermopylae, Seven Pillars of Wisdom..." Michelangelo looked up at him with wide eyes. "Dude, why are you reading these?"

"Because they help," Leonardo said too quickly. "I'm understanding a lot about fighting and tactics that I didn't know before, and the more I read, the more I realize I need to read more than that."

Michelangelo tilted his head. "Did you practice saying that?"

Leonardo glowered at him and looked away.

"Not that you aren't right," Michelangelo said, twisting around so that he sat cross-legged. "I mean, I get it. You don't want us dangling off a streetlight in the rain again."

Both of them couldn't help a quick glance at the scar tissue marring Leonardo's arm. Squirming, Leonardo turned his arm to hide it, then wished he hadn't moved and called even more attention to it.

"Still..." Mikey crept a little closer, leaning up on the bed so he could puppy-eye his brother. "Kinda miss ya. You're always cooped up in here an' I don't see you much now."

Leonardo didn't laugh, but his brother acting like that still made him huff a small breath of amusement.

"I come out." He half-shrugged and didn't look at him. "To eat. Practice."

Michelangelo hesitated, not sure if he should push, then decided to give it a shot. The worst Leonardo could do was snap at him and order him out, and if that happened, Michelangelo would give him a couple hours to cool down and then come back again.

"You should come practice with me," Michelangelo said. "Just the two of us. You're getting rusty and I know you don't like it."

Oh, he had pushed too far. His head ducked a little into his shell as Leonardo's look darkened and turned on him, as if Leonardo were looking at a m.o.u.s.e.r. to be crushed.

"Is this some kind of intervention?" Leonardo hissed, making the word sound obscene. "Crippled big brother can't fight anymore, he's gonna drag the whole team down—"

Michelangelo's eyes widened. This was worse than pushing. He could sense it, feel the surface of the deep well he'd unknowingly touched. Leonardo had kept his anger tightly bottled and now it started to bubble over.

"No—"

"Is this like Donatello telling me just how damn amazing I am for failing so hard I have to hide instead?" Leonardo said. "The only member of the A minus team now, right?"

Michelangelo blinked. "You heard that? Dude, Raph didn't mean—"

"Whatever." Leonardo stood, turning his back on his sibling as he started for the door. "Can't all of you just stop throwing this in my face?"

And it finally occurred to Michelangelo that, for all his training and study and dedication to this new way of fighting, Leonardo was not proud of himself. Worse, Leonardo was all too aware of how he couldn't keep up anymore, and this stealth was just a poor way of making up for it. Michelangelo stumbled, trying to put a name to this, and felt sick as he realized it was shame.

"I'm not—" Michelangelo bit off his reply. "It's not like that. If you just come with me to the dojo—"

"I can't train this away!" Leonardo stopped but didn't turn, instead snapping over his shoulder. "It's torn. It won't move right anymore. I can't move right anymore. I fell off a damn building, Mikey."

"Then don't try," Michelangelo said, staring up at the ceiling as he groaned. "I mean, yeah, try, but if you gotta fight different, then do it. Own it. I mean, you are! You're already changing how you fight. So how come you're so wound up?"

For a moment, Leonardo didn't move. Neither of them moved. Even downstairs, Michelangelo's last question echoed off the walls and faded away. Splinter and the others had to have heard, and they waited to hear the answer.

Leonardo's look briefly rested on the pile of books by his bed. In his haste, he'd nudged the pile with his foot, and now the books plopped uselessly along the floor. His bookmarks slid free.

If only his little brother hadn't come, hadn't pushed. Leonardo's stomach tightened. No, not his brother. He'd only been staving off the inevitable. He should have admitted it earlier. He should have admitted it and let all his pride and hope simply slide away.

His shoulders dropped, and with it all his pretense.

"Captains don't lead from the dark."


	20. "I am compassionate, not insane."

Beneath the slender branches of his bedroom's tree, Splinter knelt, head bowed, eyes half shut. From high above came faint sounds of cars humming past, the constant murmur of New York voices merging indistinctly into each other. If anyone had looked down the drainage gutter, had followed the light trickling into the pavement, they would have seen a handful of twigs in a field of darkness, easily mistaken for leaves floating on rain water.

The way of the ninja was one of deceit and disguise, of spending an entire lifetime in shadow to protect one's lord. Samurai fought openly, earning themselves accolades and fame and glory, but a ninja's life and death were to be in secret—hidden spies, thieves and assassins dying unknown by all but their own intimate clan.

Splinter's family had no lord. He accepted that with an open heart. After the betrayals of his clan, the loss of his wife and family not in combat but for meaningless backstabbing...better that his sons should not have to serve anyone but themselves. The family was their lord, and they fought for each other's sake.

But...

He sighed, and he flipped his tail, unable to find a comfortable position for it. Instinct usually allowed him to forget about its presence, but when his thoughts jumbled, his tail seemed to follow suit.

Just as his sons could sometimes not settle down to meditation, today he seemed too preoccupied as well.

He would sort out his thoughts instead.

The silence of the lair grew thick and pushed out the sounds of traffic above. Normally his sons would banter, their television or arcade games blaring. For all their training, his sons did not live quietly. But today no one moved without checking that each footstep fell without sound. No one breathed loudly. Donatello typed gently and Michelangelo turned his comic book pages with a light touch. Even Raphael moved with deliberate steps, raiding the refrigerator with a skill that at least satisfied Splinter that his pupil had absorbed his lessons.

Leonardo, he did not hear at all.

The eldest was still inside the lair, that much Splinter knew. Leonardo had not slipped out on his own for days, and he felt his son's presence, a knotted mass of energy in his room.

So young, and already deeply injured. When he'd trained them, when he'd allowed them to go to the surface, Splinter knew this outcome was possible, inevitable even, but now that it had happened... Leonardo had healed, but the lasting effects left his skills trailing behind his siblings.

Except in stealth.

Splinter had once told Leonardo that he had taught him everything Leonardo knew, but not everything Splinter knew. Now the tables were turned, and his son had discovered new tricks and techniques for himself. Splinter knew he should be proud. He should be relieved that his son could still fight, could still defend himself and his brothers.

But as Leonardo grew more comfortable in the shadows, he grew more distant from his siblings. And the rift worried Splinter. As Leonardo had finally—reluctantly—confessed, a leader could not lead from the shadows, and his brothers could not understand why he would want to stay hidden. Not when being the leader meant so much to him.

And so Leonardo withdrew further. They understood less, and he withdrew again.

In the past, the Foot clan once claimed ninja who were never seen at all, not even by their fellows. Shuriken came from out of sight, enemies were dragged screaming into deep shadow where their screams stopped. And the ninja's name was forgotten even to their own family.

Leonardo looked primed to carry on that tradition. Splinter felt sick that they might lose him that way.

But his son's lack of balance, the way he could no longer find his center in training... How much of it was mental, Leonardo sabotaging himself, and how much was real?

A drowning victim needed a rope, but would Leonardo reach out and take any help offered when the darkness was so much easier to sink into?

The help must be disguised, Splinter thought. If he will not come back, then I must send his brothers in after him.

It was a gamble. They might resist, leaving Leonardo behind again. They might themselves follow him too far into darkness. Splinter was tossing a coin, and perhaps both sides were a losing gambit.

But...

The next day, with his head raised, Splinter summoned his sons in for practice. They fell into their normal positions, all kneeling, even if the three's glances kept sliding toward the eldest while he focused on a spot on the tatami mat. Leonardo's thoughts were obvious. Just one practice, a quick fall and then he could go—

"Raphael, Leonardo," Splinter said. "Beginning positions."

As one, they stood and faced each other, their shoulders tense as they prepared for what they both knew was about to happen. Leonardo stiffened, ready for when he would stumble, and already Raphael's mouth tightened, for once wishing that he'd lose this fight.

"The last time you faced each other," Splinter said, startling them with explanation instead of the expected order to begin, "Leonardo demonstrated a means of moving around the enemy without being seen."

Leonardo blinked. He looked at Raphael and found the same surprise.

"Today we will examine this technique more carefully. Leonardo, Raphael, do your best to recreate that match. Raphael, this time you will see how you were deceived in order to learn how to defeat that deception. Leonardo, you will move slowly so that your brothers can follow your actions."

Splinter turned to Michelangelo and Donatello, both as startled as their brothers.

"On your feet. Mimic their positions. Michelangelo, follow Leonardo's movements."

Splinter took a deep breath, not entirely certain that this would work. Though he had mastered the craft of ninjitsu, sometimes his lessons did not work out so masterfully. As his sons fell into line, all of them wide eyed and a little nervous, he kept his own back straight and eyes clear, as if he had total confidence in his own words.

"Begin."

Everyone watched Leonardo. He nervously glanced at them, then faced Raphael.

"We were arguing..." he said, remembering the way the fight had begun.

"You said I wouldn't be able to tag you," Raphael said, and without the anger and frustration from that day, the argument faded to something less painful, like a scar months old.

"And I threw smoke pellets..." Squirming under their looks, Leonardo cleared his throat and made himself start.

This time Leonardo only motioned the throw of smoke pellets, then bent and feinted to the left, then turned his motion right into a feint as well. He felt strange, ducking when they could see him, but he relaxed as Michelangelo tried to mimic his movements. At least his brothers were treating it like a real training session.

Raphael, trained to react, found himself turning too far one way, then overcompensating in the other direction. Even without the smoke pellets, his own habits were turned against him. His muscle memories demanded he block, but there was nothing to block. He knew Leonardo stood behind him, but he couldn't tell which way to turn to catch him.

Behind him, Leonardo grabbed his shoulders, holding him still.

"Hang on," Leonardo said. "This is where I—you were looking around but not at them—I didn't have to hide—by Don and Mikey."

"Huh?" Raphael glanced back at him, trying to make sense of what he'd said. "What do you mean?"

"It's hard when it's not..." Leonardo huffed and took a step back. "Part of why I could do it was 'cause they were over there with Splinter."

The look Raphael gave him was so blank that Leonardo glanced at his brothers and found them equally mystified. He frowned, visibly wrestling with how to explain, and he looked to Splinter for any kind of help.

"Perhaps what you mean," Splinter said, "is that this technique relies on your environment as much as your own skill. That Michelangelo and Donatello's presence here made your own stealth possible."

"Yes!" Leonardo said, brightening as the words now came in a rush. "Raph knew they were there, and he knew I was behind him. He knew it, so even when I slipped away..."

Now Leonardo ducked back around Raphael's shoulder, creating just enough motion for Raphael to sense on his other side. Even now, knowing what his brother was doing, Raphael still felt that movement and reflexively turned his head.

"...he still knew I was behind him somewhere," Leonardo said. "It didn't matter that I'm not there. He's sure of it."

"So it was Raph tricking Raph," Michelangelo said as if sudden knowledge had been dropped on him. "But what about me and Donny? We saw you the whole time."

"That didn't matter." Leonardo shrugged, flinching as a nerve in his arm twinged. "I didn't have to hide from you."

"But what if you did?" Donatello asked. "What if it'd been three against one? Or if you had to hide from us, too?"

Leonardo tilted his head as he considered. "Probably would've gone up. Everyone crouches down when they want to sneak around, but a quick jump and roll away...that would be the best bet."

In their minds' eye, they could see the jump, imagining his landing. Raphael frowned. Leonardo's balance had been the bane of their sparring, and a jump like that required a steadiness that his brother simply hadn't had in weeks. His comment slipped out before he could stop himself.

"If you didn't crash land."

Leonardo's shoulders dropped slightly. He gave no argument.

"If I didn't crash..."

They all cringed. They'd managed to go so long without thinking about Leonardo's injuries that to have them so bluntly brought up again felt like a collective backhand against what they were doing, even if Raphael was right—especially if he was right.

"So don't crash," Michelangelo said, swinging his arm over Leonardo's shoulders. "Let's do this! I wanna make Raph trick himself, too. I'm gonna need some more smoke pellets, though—"

"Oh no." Donatello shook his head and crossed his arms, putting his foot down. "I already made a bunch for you. Either you quit wasting them or you learn to make them yourself!"

"But Donny—" Michelangelo tried flashing his puppy eyes, and when that didn't work, turned to his big brother. "He gave you some, too, right?"

"I am not giving you any," Leonardo said, but he smiled as he said it. "Tell you what. Let's try it without using them first. Raph and Mikey, pair up, only this time it's Raph staying out of sight, and maybe we can kill some of the lights—"

Leonardo paused as if stung. He glanced back at Splinter as he realized he'd taken the practice session over from him. "Um, if that's okay, sensei?"

Sitting back on his heels, smiling faintly and squashing the flip his tail wanted to give, Splinter nodded once. "Of course. A lesson in stealth has been...long overdue."

Would he see his sons lose themselves in shadow? Would Leonardo still slip from their grasp? Perhaps the three would lose their interest and rely on the skills they had already learned, once again leaving Leonardo behind.

Splinter banished those thoughts. No point in borrowing trouble, and for now, Leonardo's gaze no longer lingered on the floor. When Leonardo turned off the lights, leaving them silhouettes lit only by the glow of the candles against the far wall, all four of them vanished into the pools of darkness around the room.


	21. "For a ninja, anything can be a weapon." - Splinter

Stealth came slowly to his brothers. Remain still. Move only when the enemy's glance focuses on something else. They've learned such things before, but now they were asked to treat it less as a lesson and more as a way of life. Splinter praised them for how quickly they took to each lesson, one after the other.

To Leonardo, they stumbled. They fell and moved at the wrong moment. They struggled to hold still as if deep wounds pulled on their own limbs. They reminded him of himself trying to learn a difficult jump, repeating the same steps over and over until they landed, wobbling and shaky. In this, finally, he had found an aspect of ninjitsu in which he excelled. Even without his headstart, he would always outpace them. He still couldn't find his balance, but he could find his siblings no matter how well they hid.

His head lifted as he took them to new locations in the New York cisterns, showing Michelangelo how to find a hiding spot quickly. He moved without being aware of his own injuries as he told Raphael to lean to the right—he could still see the glint of light on his sai. And as he helped Donatello pack his duffel back so nothing rattled, he began to forget his own pain.

And for a little while, they forgot the meaning of clan warfare.

Leonardo had killed so many of the Foot's soldiers. Of course Shredder wanted revenge. He and his brothers went streetside less and less, avoiding the ninja hunting for them. The few fights they found themselves in were quick knife fights that ended in less than a minute as they put their new skills to work, only ambushed once as they came to a large storm drain that would begin their twisting path home.

"Strike and fade into the night" Splinter had said, and they obeyed. They were not samurai fighting according to samurai honor. They were ninja, melting into darkness and striking invisibly. A shuriken thrown from the shadows landed in a Foot ninja's stomach. A blast of laser fire—Donatello dodged to the right while Raphael took down the Foot soldier from behind. A bloody splash across the ground, a cry that turned into a groan—signs that another ninja had taken a blade.

Only this time the voice was familiar, and when Leonardo turned, he found Michelangelo standing too close to a Foot ninja whose hand lay deceptively gently against his brother's side.

Raphael froze. Donatello stared in mute shock. The ninja beside Michelangelo pulled back, revealing the tanto that slid into their brother, and Michelangelo took a shuddering step, pressed his hands against his side as blood welled over his fingers.

Leonardo threw every last smoke bomb he had, covering the roof in a thick fog. Against other ninja, the surprise of the sudden explosions was more of a help than the smoke itself. He rolled under a swung sword, had to sidestep two blaster shots, and came up with one arm under his little brother.

"Walk with me," he whispered, already taking steps.

Michelangelo leaned hard against him, nodding against his shoulder, and as they reached the edge of the cloud, Michelangelo tossed his own smoke bombs in a scatter behind them. Metal clanged behind them, Raphael and Donatello covering their escape to buy them time.

The cloud would fade in a moment. Leonardo judged them far enough, dropping to one knee and laying Michelangelo on his back. He pulled his brother's mask off and folded it hastily, pushing it against the wound and pulling his brother's belt up an inch to help hold the cloth in place. It was all he had time for. He put Michelangelo's hand over his shoulder again, lifting him back to his feet.

Another pop of smoke bombs followed them toward the storm drain. As expected, a handful of Foot ninja were already there waiting, but luck and the night breeze brought the enveloping smoke on Leonardo's heels. He led Michelangelo around them, so close that they could make an easy kill of one, and then they were moving behind the ninja, slipping back into the darkness.

Only farther into the tunnel did Michelangelo risk talking, whispering to his brother if he thought their siblings would be okay. Leonardo wasn't sure how to answer, but he didn't have to.

"We're fine," Raphael said softly, coming up behind them. "Little scratched up, but you should see the other guys."

"Here." Leonardo turned, motioning for Raphael to take Michelangelo. "Carry him."

Raphael took him easily, holding him in both arms, and he gave a look at his older brother.

"They'll send more this way," Leonardo whispered. "Get him to Splinter. Donatello, watch his back."

"But you—" Donatello started.

"They'll never see me," Leonardo promised. "Go."

Raphael didn't hesitate. His brother's blood was already soaking through the cloth and wetting his fingers. Behind, Donatello grimaced and clapped his hand on Leonardo's shoulder, nodding once and then leaving him behind.

Leonardo watched them go, then took a long breath. The fight had taken too long. A new wave of Foot would be here soon. He walked as close to the mouth of the storm drain as he dared, the oval curve of its shadow reaching his feet. Only now did he notice the thin layer of water on ground, the black streaks of blood in the moonlight. Several bodies lay in the fading haze, but the wisps of receding smoke showed too many ninja gathering, waiting to charge in. Three...five...nine...

The one who'd stabbed his brother was still standing, sword in one hand, tanto in the other, its blade dark and dripping.

Leonardo knelt, breathing deep. His only advantage was surprise. "Never follow a snake into its hole." Wasn't that one of Splinter's lessons? Impossible to tell where the hole widened and the snake could suddenly turn, lightning quick, and strike. They had no idea that he was there, but they knew that, in their panic, his brothers had left a trail of blood for them to follow straight home. His enemies believed that they would only face three turtles, and those three blinded by their emotions.

He looked up. Another two ninja had gathered, and these ones had lights to follow the blood trail. Eleven ninja now.

The one who'd stabbed his brother was still standing, sword in one hand, tanto in the other, its blade dark and dripping.

Leonardo couldn't take his off of that knife. He felt his courage tie itself up in knots. Eleven ninja, and he had no more smoke bombs, had only—he touched the side of his belt to check—one shuriken left. And no balance. He wobbled and crashed during training. How could he hope to—?

The one who'd stabbed his brother was still standing, sword in one hand, tanto in the other, its blade dark and dripping. And now the ninja made a short motion, tilting his head back with a laugh, demonstrating to the others his success.

Leonardo's lips parted slightly, taking a gulp of air. The bastards were all laughing.

Without any signal, they began creeping forward. Their two beams of light swept the entrance of the storm drain, finding it empty, and they motioned at the drops of blood splashed on the side of the cement, well above the waterline.

As they began their hunt in earnest, guarding the ninja holding the lights, two ninja turned to watch the rear.

Not one step past the drain's entrance, their heads rolled backward and hit the ground before their bodies dropped.

The twin splashes alerted their comrades. The lights flashed around, inadvertently blinding several ninja, and the two lights became one as glass and plastic exploded around a well thrown shuriken.

In the burst of explosive light, they spotted Leonardo impaling another in the back, and then the storm drain went pitch black again.

Eight ninja now, all of them on guard. The one with the remaining flashlight pointed the beam at the water, reflecting its light to create a thin gloom of silhouettes. A splash, and they all turned to see—

A sword cut cleanly through the hands holding the flashlight. Screaming, spurting blood from the stumps, the Foot ninja stumbled toward the entrance and fell, and all his comrades backed away while staring at him. Impossible not to stare at him for a moment, even as disciplined in combat as they were, and they didn't look up in time. On the shrieking man fell another prone body missing a head.

Technically six left, Leonardo thought.

Someone kicked the flashlight off, bringing back the darkness. No more distractions. They fanned out, and two of them drew blasters, firing bolts of laser fire where instinct told them Leonardo had to be. A shot grazed his shell, leaving white hot pain along his side as the wound smoked, and he bit back his cry and lunged forward.

The reason he hadn't grabbed one of the fallen men's blasters for himself was that the bright lights tended to show exactly where someone was standing. Generally a foot and half up was where he had to aim his swords.

Four ninjas left, but they were closing in on him. If he ran, he'd lead them home. If he ran for the mouth of the storm drain, they'd see his silhouette and attack from the cover of darkness. And if he stayed still, they would cut him down. He couldn't block four swords.

If only he could—

He picked up a blaster and fired. A flurry of shuriken came at him, and he turned and ducked at the same time that the Foot clan realized that he hadn't been aiming his shots at them.

He raised his head in time to see the top of the storm drain come crushing down in a heap.

Air rushed by him, and he stepped back from the melted rebar steel and heavy concrete bouncing past him. Coughing, he stood straight and his foot brushed something plastic. Realizing it was the flashlight, he picked it up and fumbled with the switches for a moment.

Light poured out, sending a beam through the cloud of dust particles. The whole entrance had been closed up with jagged chunks of concrete bigger than his whole body. He could see bits of the sky through the spaces, but he would have been hard pressed to wriggle through, and as the pile shifted slightly under its own weight, he reconsidered even that. Climbing through there was suicide. The Foot clan wouldn't be using this tunnel to find them any time soon.

He looked down at the floor. In the grey, dry dust, a thin line of blood crept out in slow inches, and he stared at it for several seconds. A strange fascination welled up in him, and his head tilted slightly. There were several mangled bodies beneath that weight, broken and dead or dying. He couldn't help wondering how that felt.

Would the Foot clan have laughed if their positions were reversed? They had laughed while surrounded by bodies of their own clan.

Michelangelo! He could finally let himself think about his brother again. He switched off the flashlight and tossed it onto the pile, then turned and ran back to the lair.

He found Raphael halfway back, coming back to join the fight. Raphael sagged in relief and ran with him, nodding that Michelangelo had been alive when he left. Inside their home, they found the trail of blood leading to Splinter's room where Michelangelo lay on his side on a futon, a blanket drawn up to the wound. Blood covered Splinter's hands, but a proper set of gauze and bandages now covered the wound. The stained mask lay next to a messy needle and thread.

"Is he—?" Raphael started.

"He is breathing," Splinter said, leaning back and sighing deeply. "The blade does not seem to have punctured anything vital. And no poison...we were very lucky. With pressure...we will see. Raphael, bring me the pills from the cabinet. He should have something stronger than mere aspirin."

As Raphael moved, Leonardo came and sat beside Splinter, staring at his little brother. Now that he was home, weariness settled in him, and he slumped further down. He couldn't relax, but he couldn't make himself move, either.

"You appear mostly well," Splinter said, turning his attention to him as they waited. He touched Leonardo's shell, plucking out two unnoticed shuriken embedded on the edge. "Mostly."

"I collapsed the tunnel we were in," Leonardo said, gazing at the shuriken without any emotion. "We can't use that way anymore, but neither can they."

"Good." Splinter nodded once. "Did any survive?"

Leonardo shook his head. Splinter touched his shoulder and squeezed lightly, but Leonardo didn't feel him. He stared at his little brother, teeth clenched, eyes clamped shut. When Raphael brought the pills, they had to coax Michelangelo's mouth open and hold his hand as he fought not to throw them up again. There was nothing else they could do, but no one moved.

"How long?" Leonardo whispered.

"You were stabbed as well," Splinter said simply.

Leonardo frowned. Weeks. He wondered if Michelangelo would be slowed by his wound, or if he would lose his balance the same as Leonardo had. Something inside him twisted.

Michelangelo was acrobatic, playfully expressive. He needed that balance. If Michelangelo found himself stumbling as Leonardo had...

"They will be angry at losing so many," Splinter murmured. "But cautious as well. We will not see another attack for some time."

Leonardo's fists clenched. They had stabbed his little brother. And they wanted more?

When they came after his family again...he would kill every single one of them. And they'd never see him cutting them apart.

For the first time in months, he felt completely balanced.

If he could have thought clearly, he would have named that balance "hate."


	22. "...do not fight the armor, you fight the man inside." - Splinter

Michelangelo drifted in and out of pain. His eyes closed, bringing dreams of fitful splashes of concrete and the rustling of clothing—a fight against ninja that he could only just see in the corner of his eye—and then he woke again, staring along the floor of Splinter's room.

His father's mat lay directly ahead, pressed thin from years of meditation. Beside that, a single book with a torn strip of paper marking a place between yellow pages. And the wall was dark, barely visible by the row of candles burning out of sight.

Michelangelo couldn't bring himself to turn his head. He certainly wouldn't try to move, not if he could help it. Better to sleep as much as he could, to suffer boredom while he was awake.

"Time to eat."

Michelangelo winced and said nothing, closing his eyes as tea and chicken soup were set down with a clink. He breathed deep, held it as his wound stretched, then exhaled.

His brother didn't bother cajoling him to stop pretending. Leonardo put his fingers around Michelangelo's shell, gripped firmly, and then lifted enough to slide his arm beneath his brother.

"Brace yourself."

"Kinda wish it was Raph or Don," Michelangelo whispered from the back of his throat. "At least they—"

He was tilted upright, not in a quick jerk but in a slow, inexorable motion that took several seconds. Pressure built in his wound like it wanted to rip apart but somehow it stayed stitched together without tearing. He grit his teeth and turned his head, his cheek brushing his brother's knuckles.

"—they're nicer about it." Michelangelo gasped, resting back against Leonardo's arm.

"Do you feel sick?"

"I feel like shit," Michelangelo said, but he shook his head. "Won't throw up."

Long moments passed as Michelangelo settled, his head hanging as he caught his breath. He reached down to his side and touched the bandages, then brought his fingers up to his face. He frowned. Dry.

"...feels like it should be bleeding?" Leonardo said softly.

"Kinda wish I was," Michelangelo said, letting his hand drop. "At least I woudn't feel like such a wuss."

"Healing hurts." Leonardo paused, then covered his hesitation by squeezing his brother's shoulder. "Do you need to go to the bathroom?"

Michelangelo squeezed his eyes shut. A brutal question, but necessary. The bathroom had become an exercise in humiliation, but better to do it now than after he'd eaten, when the act of getting to his feet could drive the knife into his side all over again.

He shook his head. He could wait awhile longer.

"Didn't really eat anything today," he muttered. "Not hungry."

"Raph lets you get away with that," Leonardo said, but without any heat. "Let's get something in you."

Michelangelo didn't care for tea, but it was hot and it felt good going down his throat. At least it was different than water, which was all he'd been given for days. And he managed to hold it in his hands without trembling and sloshing over the cup.

As he sipped, his breaths sounded horribly loud. Michelangelo felt like a wheezing mess, rocking with every breath.

"Anything happen?" he mumbled, just to fill the silence. "Shredder, Foot, anything?"

"Nothing." Leonardo shook his head once. "Don and Raph pulled a supply run. They didn't see anything. Been quiet the past few days. Not even any other mutants."

"Huh." Michelangelo frowned. The distraction of talking didn't last as long as he'd wanted. When Leonardo asked if he wanted to started on the soup, he didn't answer. His brother took it as 'no.'

Two pills were set down by the bowl, huge maroon pills almost as big as his thumb. Michelangelo stared with wide eyes.

"For me?"

"Prescription strength pain killers." Leonardo picked up the soup, holding it ready for him. "Like I said, supply run."

Past experience had taught Michelangelo to eat before swallowing a pill unless he'd like to see that pill again. He readjusted his arm to snake around his brother's waist, then put his free hand around Leonardo's, bringing the bowl to his mouth.

The chicken soup was cheap canned stuff, more salt than broth, but he barely tasted it. It filled his stomach, relieving a hunger he hadn't realized through the pain, and he relaxed in his brother's arm.

Then the pill, disgusting and so big that it was hard to force it down his throat.

"How long'll it take to kick in?" he coughed, coughing and finishing the dregs of soup to take away the taste.

"Soon. Do you feel sick?"

"No."

Michelangelo felt the shift in his brother's arm, the turn of Leonardo's shoulder, and he winced, bracing himself for—he was lowered backward to the futon without warning, one swift motion that had him on his side. He sucked in rapid, short breaths, but the pain didn't shrink or grow. It just pulsed and sent out ripples through his shell and lungs.

"Never liked the..." Michelangelo muttered, "rip the band-aid off fast approach."

Leonardo pulled the blanket back up, then gathered the dishes. "Want me to read to you?"

Michelangelo shook his head once. Maybe his big brother liked reading while he was in pain, but he couldn't stand the droning sound or even the thought of concentrating on tiny printed shapes in a yellowed book. And he didn't want any tv or music or games.

Just the silence of Splinter's room, the thin meditation mat to study until sleep came.

And in that silence, he learned to catch his brother's faint breath, to feel instead of hear his brother moving around behind him, keeping vigil. Michelangelo didn't let on that he heard. Warmer than the blanket, more satisfying than food, the knowledge that he wasn't alone.

"Hey," he whispered. "You still there?"

"Yeah."

"Think...think Shredder does this on purpose?" Michelangelo clung to the vision of Splinter's mat in front of him, the edges blurring as pain gave way to a groundless sense of numb floating. "Make us hurt?"

"They don't try to hurt us," Leonardo said behind him somewhere. As the pain floated away, so did Leonardo's voice. "They're trying to kill us."

Michelangelo heard everything as if he were slowly rising up toward the ceiling, and he forced himself to watch Splinter's mat, told himself that he was still on the floor.

"So me being hurt doesn't make him happy?"

"He doesn't know you're hurt," Leonardo said, his voice echoing like bells through the room. "He just knows a whole bunch of his own ninja are dead."

For the first time, the pain completely abated. Michelangelo smiled and lay comfortably, breathing deep without cringing or curling up.

"Think that makes him hurt?" Michelangelo said, not sure if his words were making sense anymore. In the cool haze settling in his head, the whole lair had gone quiet, and his own breaths were soft whispers in the air. Splinter's mat blurred and faded away. He wondered if he was somehow asleep but talking.

"...until we can face him," Leonardo said, "it's the only way we _can_ hurt him."

Michelangelo nodded once, sending ripples through himself. "Sure...like long distance fighting. Super annoying."

His eyes were shut, but he would have sworn he could still see the wall, the candles and Splinter's mat. He opened his eyes, and the mat was gone again. Trusting his brother to take care of him in case the world really was falling away, Michelangelo drowsed and let the room slowly turn around him, sinking endlessly as he floated on nothing.

A hand lightly touched his shoulder, squeezing once. As he fell asleep, he continued to feel it in his dream, a single tether keeping him from disappearing up into the sky.


	23. Zen Koan - A Cup of Tea

Michelangelo healed slowly. Twice a day, Splinter drained the wound and changed the bandages, working with tools that Donatello sterilized for him and somehow managed to keep clean. Raphael or Leonardo would sit with them, holding Michelangelo's hand and keeping a running dialogue going to distract their little brother from the agonizing tear in his side.

Through grit teeth, Michelangelo asked about the last episode of Crognard the Barbarian. Although no one had turned on the tv for days, Raphael made up a story about an evil skeleton king in an mountain and the magic sword Crognard had discovered. Leonardo punctuated the lie with nods and adding a sidequest about finding Crognard's long lost sister who'd been tricked into serving an evil alien.

And if they were spinning the lie bigger and bigger, then they didn't have to look down and see the blood clumping Splinter's fur and the bandages covered in dried stains, didn't have to see the packed gauze soaked in strange fluids as Michelangelo's wound healed from the inside out. Raphael's voice faded slightly as Donatello gathered the mess without flinching, helping Splinter pack fresh gauze back in.

"What's-" Michelangelo all but crushed Raphael's hand as he gasped. "What's her name?"

"Huh?" Raphael asked, startled. "Who?"

"Crognard's sister, dude."

Michelangelo stared at the ceiling, breathing shallow, and Raphael shot a panicked look at Leonardo who shrugged and shook his head.

"Crogna," Splinter said, giving them both a glare as he finished taping the end of the bandage to his son's shell. "Her name is Crogna. They are twins."

Michelangelo didn't see his brothers slump in relief. "He must'a been happy to find her."

"There is much atonement she must do," Splinter continued, "having been evil for so long. But she will heal in time, I am sure. It is all quite dramatic."

Splinter took a damp cloth to clean blood from the edges of the wound, then sat straight and sighed, relieving the strain in his shoulders.

"Cool." Michelangelo more breathed than spoke. "Can't wait to see them. Sensei, when will I be better enough to see them?"

"Your wound heals slowly, but it heals," Splinter said. "It may progress more rapidly as time passes, but for now I think you will be in my room for several more days. When you can sit up, then perhaps your brothers will help you walk to the main room."

"Absolutely," Donatello nodded, looking askance of the bloody bandages gathered in a bowl. "I'll be really happy when you're better."

"Happy enough—" Michelangelo panted, slowly breathing normally again. "Happy enough to let me play with your glowy jars and stuff?"

"Get better soon," Donatello said. "So I can tell you no without feeling guilty."

Donatello left the room with Splinter, listening to a short list of supplies they would somehow need to steal to continue protecting Michelangelo from infection. Antibacterial washes, strong ones, and more painkillers as he would need more than they originally thought. At least another bottle, perhaps two, and Splinter listened as Donatello said they would either have to rob a pharmacy or else mug the right drug dealer.

As they went, Leonardo glanced at Raphael, feeling filled with knots, and his brother easily read his look. Why was Michelangelo healing slowly? Was it because the wound was so deep? Or the bacteria in the sewers? Or maybe— Raphael shook his head.

"Splinter wouldn't hide that from us," he said, touching Leonardo's shoulder. "Mikey's always been slow. Now we know it's not just mental."

"Ouch," Michelangelo groaned. "Still awake, dude."

"So go to sleep," Raphael said without any anger. "We'll be here when you wake up."

"That...sounds like a threat," Michelangelo said.

"I'll stay," Leonardo said, shaking his head once as Raphael opened his mouth to argue. "We can't both stay here. Someone needs to get dinner going and keep an eye topside."

Raphael read his gaze and nodded slowly. Several days had passed. Leonardo really wanted someone plugged into the television, radio and internet to make sure that the Foot clan hadn't decided to start moving again. Shredder didn't know that they were resting to nurse their brother back to health. By now Saki had to know that his ninja were dead. If he wanted to strike, now would be the perfect time.

"Got it, boss," Raphael said, grumbling as he got to his feet. "And Mikey, get to sleep. We got better things to do than watch yer lazy shell."

"Love you, too, bro'," Michelangelo chuckled, then winced. "Ow."

Leonardo watched Raphael leave, then settled down more comfortably. The candles around them had burned low, with several guttering and smoke sifting up. The handful still burning cast just enough light to keep a glow around Michelangelo.

Pulling his book out from behind himself, Leonardo turned so that the glow touched the pages. Slipping out the bookmark, he opened it to his last page and continued reading.

_-when the cup was full, he kept pouring. The tea overflowed-_

"Leo?"

He looked up. Michelangelo was still looking at the ceiling, but his eyes drooped as the pain left him past exhaustion.

"I'm still here," he said.

"So'm I." Michelangelo took a shallow breath. "I'm not going anywhere."

Leonardo frowned. "What?"

"I know you'n Raph're worried," Michelangelo murmured. "But I'm gonna be okay. It hurts, but it's getting better. I can feel it."

Leonardo's smile was wan. As his little brother's breaths deepened and his body relaxed, Leonardo reached over and pulled the blanket higher along his plastron, careful of the bandages. Michelangelo didn't stir.

Yes, his little brother was still there. But his presence had never felt so fragile. Leonardo could almost sympathize with his siblings when they'd tried to protect him. Almost.

So he kept watch, sitting beside him and rereading the same short book of zen koans, until the last few candles flickered unsteadily. Then he put his book aside, relit a single wick to serve as a night light against the dark room, and listened to the faint drone of the television news in the other room.


	24. "What you know is dangerous to your enemy; what you think you know is dangerous to you."

Practices improved. His eldest no longer began each session expecting failure, and his brothers no longer treated him like a stranger. And if they couldn't take to the darkness as readily, and if he could not make up for the lost time while healing, then at least they did not hold that against each other. Michelangelo's healing came about slower than Leonardo's but steadier, until he finally fell back in step with his brothers.

Splinter winced a little as Leonardo was again left behind in a dark dojo, practicing late into the night to try to catch up, but Raphael increasingly stayed with him, rebuilding a bridge they'd all thought had been long since burned. Donatello followed their steps, filling in the silence with problems in the lab and listening to their odd ideas to help. After an hour, Michelangelo returned from a nap and joined them, and wordlessly they all began the same tai chi movements, working his healing wound and building Leonardo's balance. And forcing Raphael to patiently slow his own motion, becoming more precise.

Slowly he watched his sons mend what had been broken, putting back together their sense of trust. They swept away lingering resentment and forged themselves back into family. With only a little begging, they even managed to persuade Splinter to let them return to the surface, a supply run for bandages and pain killers and other things they'd used up.

As he waited, he made tea and sat down at the television, indulging in favorite soap opera, _Edge of the Highway of the Hearts,_ now that his sons were not glued to Crognar. As Marianne lapsed into amnesia and forgot about her adulterous lover Brad, Splinter allowed a little of the stress of the past months to slip away. The tea was warm, the volume was low, and he slowly relaxed further into the couch. Finally his eyes shut, and his head tucked down slightly as he fell asleep.

In the lair, the tv's murmur and the low rush of water through the pipes were the only sounds, lulling his senses, and when the show ended, the next program was likewise as quiet. And the next.

Splinter lifted his head.

Something was wrong.

He sat straight and glanced at the clock on the far kitchen wall. Past three a.m. His sons had been gone for far too long for a simple supply run.

The communicator? But it had not rung, even though he checked it to make sure. He set it back on his belt. If his sons were in danger, calling them now could cost their lives.

He went to his room and gathered up what bandages and pills they had, making sure everything was arranged neatly and for quick use. He set out three futons alongside the one Michelangelo had used. He hoped they would not need any of them.

Then he went to the front of the lair and knelt by the door to wait. If he could meditate, calm his mind and focus, perhaps he might sense their spirits as they fought. If nothing else, he might settle his own spirit. There had been times where he waited for days, even weeks. Worrying was useless...even if he couldn't make himself stop.

The communicator scratched on, hissing with static and electric pops. He picked it up, frowning when there was no image on the screen accompanying the weak voice.

"Master..."

"Michelangelo," Splinter answered. "Where are you?"

"...at the door...open it for us?" A cough. "Kinda hard with our hands full..."

Before his son had finished speaking, Splinter was up and unlocking the main door, swinging it open to find Michelangelo bent over with Donatello piggybacked on his shell. Behind them, Leonardo supported Raphael, his arm slung over his shoulder, while also carrying a duffel bag in one hand.

"What happened?" Splinter said as he ushered them in and locked the door again. "Take them to my room. What are your injuries?"

"S'actually not as bad as it seems?" Michelangelo said, trying to chuckle and wincing as his side throbbed. "Ow..."

Splinter swept Donatello up into his arms, finding him unconscious and cool to the touch. When he lay his son down on the futon, examining him for wounds, he frowned when he found none.

"Poison?" he demanded.

"Gas," Michelangelo said, helping lay Raphael down beside him. "Karai said it was poison. We tried not to breathe in it, but Donnie was right in the way...he was coughing it out the whole way here."

"Good," Splinter said. "He has bought us time. Leonardo, my herb kit—bring it here."

As he waited, Splinter took the moment to glance over his younger sons. Neither Michelangelo nor Raphael seemed badly injured beyond deep bruises that had turned dark purple and yellow around the edges. Raphael's bent posture came from the long bruise on his side and the growing shadow on his calf. No doubt he'd taken heavy strikes there. Splinter bent and pressed his ear to both their plastrons, listening to their breaths and pulse. Raised but relaxing.

The herb kit appeared at his side. For long minutes, Splinter created an incense to counteract the poison, setting the mixture alight and pushing it close to Donatello's face so he could more easily breathe in the smoke. Then a dose of crushed leaves and powdered petals in a base of warmed alcohol, no more than a thimble-full, forced down Donatello's throat to begin breaking down the poison. Donatello coughed several times, then turned on his side and curled a little closer to the smoke. His eyes didn't open.

Then poultices for the bruises. With luck, the vinegar and sage would reduce the swelling, and then he could make sure that they hadn't suffered any cracks or breaks disguised by the black marks.

"Joke's on Karai," Raphael muttered, distracting himself as the hot strips of bandages were set around calf. "We still got everything. It's all in Donny's duffel."

"I am proud of your determination," Splinter said, "if not quite your evasion."

"Hard to run," Raphael huffed, "when you're lugging fifty pounds of gear."

"That is why you split it into smaller bags," Splinter said. "Easier to run, then."

Raphael grunted, accepting his words. As Splinter continued finished wrapping his leg, Raphael recounted the fight. There wasn't much to tell. On their way home, they'd been caught in a simple back alley ambush and had to fight their way out. That Karai was armed with a new poison was not expected, but also not very surprising.

"Is Donnie gonna be okay?" Michelangelo asked.

Splinter nodded once, gently raising Michelangelo's arm until he winced. The widening splotch on his shoulder was hiding something he suspected was worse than a bruise, but with their shells and plastron, there was little Splinter could do beyond immobilize the arm.

"He did not die immediately," Splinter said. "And there is a distinct scent of sulfur about you. I believe I know this recipe, a Foot clan poison. Black plum and licorice root should calm the attack."

Jasmine...Splinter lifted his head at the scent of hot tea. A tray of four cups was set down and parceled out, and even Raphael accepted his with a grateful nod at his older brother.

"Dude," Michelangelo sighed, "I dun even like tea, but I needed that."

In the resultant silence, Splinter glanced at his eldest son. At his right, Leonardo turned and put his back against the wall, legs drawn up with his arms resting on his knees, holding the hot cup in his hands. He looked almost untouched, save for a handful of scratches, but he stared into the tea as if it was a mile deep.

The tea was nearly done when Splinter finished, putting Michelangelo and Raphael to resting while they kept watch over Donatello. Splinter motioned for Leonardo to help him put away the supplies they'd won. On the far side of his room, kneeling side by side, they brought out of the duffel bag the bandages, antibiotics and pain killers, arranging them in the cabinets stolen from junk stores.

"You are quiet tonight," Splinter said. "You were not hurt? I saw no injury."

"I'm..." Leonardo paused. "I'm fine."

But he moved slowly, deliberately. His hand lingered on the edge of the wood, set a bottle on the shelf and pushed it to the back with measured care. Every movement of his hand, each tilt of his head, was done with distinct care. Splinter recognized it—hyperawareness, excruciatingly aware of himself.

"You wish to ask me something," Splinter said. He kept his tone mild. "Or tell me something?"

To his right, Leonardo exhaled, bowing his head. That Splinter guessed didn't make it any easier.

"Hard to run when there's four of me," he said. "Hard to make myself fight like I used to."

Splinter stilled, hand in midair...then put another bottle on the shelf.

"And yet you managed." He tried to put as much confidence and reassurance as he could into his voice. "You are all home."

"Donatello is poisoned," Leonardo said. "My brothers are hurt."

"...I cannot deny this," Splinter said softly. "But I fear your intentions now."

Leonardo looked up at him. Although his voice wavered, there was nothing but steel in his gaze.

"I saw something in your books," he said, "from when I was still getting better. Ninja who were completely hidden—"

"Leonardo—"

"Something about things forgotten...?" Leonardo pressed. "Wasu...wasure..."

"Wasuremono," Splinter said, his head bowed. "Things left behind. A tradition in our clan."

"...tell me about them?"

Splinter's eyes shut tight, and he breathed deep for a long moment. "This is not a tradition I would see brought back."

"Please." Leonardo leaned forward to try to see his face. "It doesn't mean I will. I just...maybe it'll help. Maybe they knew something I haven't learned yet, a technique or—"

"Nothing you do not already know," Splinter said. "And I fear I will lose you in it."

Leonardo didn't answer, but he didn't back down, either. And Splinter knew if he didn't yield in this, his books would go missing until Leonardo found the answer.

"I will tell you," Splinter said as if admitting defeat. "Even though I do not want to see you left behind."

Leonardo remained silent, but he couldn't help replying in his thoughts.

If he followed through with this...Splinter wouldn't see him left behind.

Splinter wouldn't see him at all.


	25. "Thought I'm only good with a blade? Wrong again." - Leonardo

Splinter sat as if meditating, staring into the candle flame. Relaxed, head down, eyes shut, he breathed steadily as if nothing bothered him. As if his mind was clear and the world was at rest, without any anxiety clouding his thoughts.

Leonardo knew better, and still he opened the book and began to read.

Couched in metaphor, the hidden techniques of the Foot clan slowly opened to him. The title, _Wasuremono, Things Left Behind,_ camouflaged the contents in a poetic veneer that only lifted if the reader understood the clues. The first chapter spoke of the value of silence, politely letting everyone else speak, listening to what was said. The casual reader saw an odd chapter on etiquette. The burgeoning ninja saw that the book never gave any reason to speak, not even in pain. _Do not cry out in vulgar fashion, but continue to breathe and clamp down on the wound so that the blood does not disturb the gathering_.

"This is a book for spies," Leonardo murmured.

"More than spies," Splinter said, knowing what page he'd paused at. "In the houses of lords, a low ceiling often hid the empty space of the wood rafters above. Assassins could find an easy hiding spot there."

"Then how did the lords keep away assassins?" Leonardo asked.

"Their servants were armed with spears," Splinter said. "For thrusting up into the ceiling. A ninja might have to suffer a wound in silence."

Leonardo considered that, then returned to the book. Accompanied by a woodblock print of the lord's court watching birds on the palace grounds, the next chapter dealt with the fineries of bird watching, focusing on the movements of the heron. In perfect stillness, the heron stood on one slim leg, then deliberately, slowly, set the second foot down on the grass. The heron eased forward, its upper body completely still as it leaned straight, beginning to raise its back leg. Moving only a fraction of its body, it covered half the distance of the field...then spread its wings and lifted into the air.

Straightening his fingers, turning his hand out, Leonardo mimicked the bird, then glanced back at the picture of the gathered court. Fine ladies sat in colorful kimono while the lord sat above them on a raised dais, one hand out as if directing their attention to a particular bird. Leonardo's gaze slipped up toward the rafters above the pavilion...and he breathed in.

There, neatly balanced on one of the slender beams, stood a white heron. It matched the pale wood of the pavilion, blending in so that no one saw its long, thin beak aimed at the lord. The meaning was obvious.

"It's out in the open," he said, "but no one sees it."

"Ninja more often employ disguise," Splinter said, "than dress all in black. People will ignore what they think is simply background."

Leonardo nodded once. He already knew that from hiding among Karai's ninja.

Several chapters followed, each of them short and focused on a certain aspect of court life. Cuisine disguised a manual on what poisons could be masked with certain ingredients. Fashion disguised the need to keep a costume accurate, especially concerning the common tools of gardeners, soldiers and courtesans. A devotion to Buddhism was really a screed on cutting ties from the world, from belongings, from emotion, even from a sense of self.

_A woman carried water out of a well and found the reflection of the moon on the water's surface. Then her bucket fell apart and the water spilled to nothing, and the moon vanished into the grass. Thus she attained enlightenment._

Leonardo stared at the picture of the woman, the moon and the water on the ground. He didn't spot any ninja or symbolic meaning in the woodblock. It was simply an illustration of the short paragraph at the end.

"A Zen koan," Splinter said suddenly, startling him. "I do not think you have studied the Zen branch of Buddhism."

Shaking his head, Leonardo sighed and figured that he wouldn't understand the picture until he'd studied the religion. He had some understanding of it—Splinter's teaching and their meditation had seen to that—but its meaning eluded him.

The final chapter was simply titled Self. He frowned and turned the page only to find the back cover. When he turned back, the title hovered over a large blank page. Had a picture been forgotten? He glanced at his master.

"That is indeed the final page," Splinter said. "If you wish to read it further, you may take it to your room. I will need your help in caring for your brothers, but after dinner, you are free to continue studying."

Did his father sound rushed? Leonardo nodded once and carried the book away, tucking it safely under his pillow before returning to his siblings. Donatello needed hot soup and tea, and Raphael's poultice required changing. Michelangelo's sprained shoulder needed another ice pack. And all of them needed to have new books or new games or have the batteries changed in the remote. As Leonardo visited each one, he felt Splinter's gaze constantly at his back, always watching.

When Leonardo finally crawled into bed, pushing aside the book so he could rest, his mind returned to the picture of the woman at the well. The image stuck in his mind, and as he hovered at the edge of waking and sleep, he imagined the bucket holding a reflection of the moon. And then the water spilled and the moon vanished, even if it was still in the sky.

In his mind, there were two moons, one surrounded by clouds, one in the water. And then the water rippled and disturbed the moon.

The moon had left itself behind.

He began to understand the chapter Self.


	26. "Do the cat thing!" - Casey

Leonardo tried to practice while Splinter was asleep. His master cast worried looks his way, and Leonardo knew that his master was not easy with him trying any of the book's techniques. So only at night did Leonardo venture from his room and begin to scale the walls, finding new paths for himself. The way of wasuremono was comforting, quiet and above all...balanced.

He began to understand the chapter on the spider, perfectly still and patient in her web, watching the world move around her. And when one string vibrated, she darted out and her meal was pulled deeper into her web, her prey wrapped thoroughly in her trap.

So he learned to wait in the darkness, creep across the pipes and stone ledges thought too narrow or high. Deliberately place each hand and foot like the heron in the field, always certain of the next step, slipping into hiding spaces from which to plan a web.

Scar tissue on his hand and arm still pulled, made him more aware of one side of his body than the other. The more he stretched to reach pipes just out of reach, however, the less his scars bothered him. Pulling himself taut across the vast expanse of the main room beneath him, watching his brothers play video games not knowing he was above them, somehow hurt less than warm up stretches in the dojo.

One night, Leonardo lay up on the highest storm pipe, listening to the water rushing by him and watching Michelangelo try to raid the fridge. On his side, Leonardo balanced a shuriken on one point on his finger, counting the seconds for a new personal record. That one wrong breath would send him toppling two stories to the floor did not bother him.

Gold light spilled from Splinter's door. Leonardo caught the shuriken and watched with wide eyes. So far Splinter had never risen during the night. Leonardo held his breath as his master crossed the floor and yawned as his tail swept across the cement.

There was an audible smack and then Michelangelo darted out of the kitchen, still holding one ill-gotten gyoza as he raced back to his bedroom. Leonardo listened to the stove click on, listened to metallic and ceramic clinking. Heard the water run for a moment.

Splinter went through all the motions of preparing tea, finally taking his teacup with him back to his room. At the door, he paused and looked around, then looked up.

Leonardo made no movement. Didn't breathe or blink. And almost as an afterthought, remembering the moon in the bucket, willed himself to stop existing. To become as empty as water in a broken container.

Shaking his head at his own paranoia, Splinter went inside and closed the door.

From then, Leonardo practiced in any spare moment when no one watched him vanish. As Donatello grew stronger and they began venturing out into the city once more, Leonardo ran less beside his brothers and more along the ledges, under and behind the vents or structures that dotted the rooftops or alleys.

And if Raphael grew more and more accustomed to filling the emptiness left behind, telling his brothers which route to take, when to risk moving through patches of light, then so be it. Leonardo watched them from the shadows, taking comfort in how he would never see a row of shells again, never have to see their faces knot up in pity at him. As they ran side by side, he faded into the background, more observing than running with them.

He felt like he could breathe against for the first time in months.

So the explosion of flames and heat across the roof felt like it stole that breath away.

Several stories above the street, on a bunch of buildings crowded together, a line of fire blocked their escape. Behind that, ninja blocked them going any farther. And coming up over the edge of the rooftop, Saki would prevent them from going anywhere ever again.

As before, Leonardo watched his brothers ambushed from the sidelines. Only this time, instead of feeling awe that no one could see him, he crept closer and determined that no one would see him at all.


	27. "I cannot die" - Saki

"Turtles."

Shell to shell, they stood with weapons out, forming a defensive center. Raphael felt Michelangelo and Donatello shift behind him, watching for an attack from their flank while he faced Saki, watching the dark eyes set in in a gleaming mask painfully reflecting the fire behind them. What had started as a streak of flames had turned into a growing conflagration, beginning to eat at the building beneath their feet.

"You have hidden yourselves well," Saki said, "but I see that cowards cannot hide forever."

"I wouldn't go slinging around the word coward," Raphael said, "when you're the one ambushing us with like twenty dudes."

"If only there were four of you," Saki sneered, "to even the odds."

Raphael tightened his grip on his sai but said nothing. The lack of Leonardo at their side was frustrating. He was sure their elder brother was somewhere nearby, but Raphael didn't want to reveal that. As satisfying as it would be to rub that in their enemy's face, better to let Saki think that Leonardo might be dead.

Behind him, Michelangelo chuckled.

"Maybe you're not as inspiring as you thought," Michelangelo said. "Looks like you're missing a couple dudes."

Saki followed his look, growling as he saw a gap where two ninja had stood and the splotch of blood on the wall behind the rest of the row, who now turned their heads and looked around as if their comrades had simply walked off. There had been no sound, no movement.

"Dishonorable rat," Saki said to the air. "Striking unseen...unless...no. Not the rat."

The low laugh that came from him made their skin crawl. Raphael tensed in frustration. Saki was no fool.

"Wasuremono. So you failed so miserably that you had to leave yourself behind." Saki laughed again, light and triumphant. "I have already won if we have wounded you so badly. Or did you forget that I know this tradition as well?"

No answer. No one had expected a reply, but the silence lay on Raphael worst of all. His brother should have been here, giving as good as he got and ready to lead them into battle. The absence of his brother made Raphael take a step forward, his anger propelling him to answer.

"Are we doing a body count?" Raphael demanded, his voice ringing over the flames cracking behind him. "'Cause there's still four of us, and you've lost like forty of you? I lost count when we was stepping over 'em."

Saki took a step forward, hands clenched into fists. "I will have you killed last, so that you may see your brothers executed before I finally end your life. My ninja-"

Before he could give the command to attack, a body landed with a heavy whump on the concrete between them. Blood splattered on Raphael's plastron and across Saki's mask, and no one moved as they took in what had fallen between them. One of the foot ninja who had vanished now reappeared, missing a head and with a shuriken in his back.

"Whoa..." Michelangelo breathed.

In one motion, Raphael quickly wiped the blood from his face, barely noticing as he kept his sai ready. Leonardo was out there somewhere, already had blood on his swords, and he'd just answered Saki's taunting. Raphael smiled to see the anger rising in Saki's glare.

Saki let his hand fall, signalling his ninja to move. And then Saki turned, scanning the rooftop where the body had fallen in its arc. With narrowed eyes, he crouched and leaped into the darkness, following his chosen prey.


	28. "The moon in the water!" - Zen Koan

Leonardo watched Saki leave his brothers to the rest of the clan, instead coming into the shadows.

What was this place? Leonardo wondered. Humans put such strange things on their buildings. A water tank, he recognized that, air conditioning vents that rotated in lazy circles, leaning antennas...but he didn't recognize several of the steel beams and wire mesh, the iron rebar jutting out of broken concrete and pipes that went nowhere. This roof was a cage of sharp angles and steam wafting up from the hot vents.

A fitting battlefield for two warriors intent on not being seen.

He could not let this become a real fight. Saki was highly skilled, far more skilled than Leonardo, than his brothers. In close quarters, he was no match. But if he stayed quiet, out of sight...

Saki turned, and shuriken peppered the pipes and wall above Leonardo.

His eyes widening, he darted from his hiding spot and climbed up the crumbling brick wall, using the rising steam to cloak his movements. Then he was over the small roof access and scrambling behind the water tank, up its steel beams, cutting himself on a piece of wire as he reached the top of the tank.

Saki's footsteps were coming around the concrete. Leonardo took two shuriken and threw them down in among the air vents, one after the other to sound as if he was moving quickly across the roof. And then Saki's footsteps vanished completely.

Leonardo froze, held his breath. Far away, he heard his brothers fighting, the wind carrying the faint whispers of their mocking insults and shouts of triumph. Below, the sound of a single vehicle passing by. Here, on the rooftop, nothing. The wind scraped through old, sharp steel, bringing the salt taste of ocean water stinging on his wounds.

Afraid to make the slightest sound, Leonardo crept up onto the very top of the tank, making himself as small as he could. Had Saki frozen as well? Were they both straining to hear the slightest sound, having lost sight of each other? Or did Saki know exactly where he was, silently stalking him out of sight?

_I can't stay here,_ Leonardo thought. _Keep moving._

Like Karai's steel pinning his hand, Saki's blade would find him eventually. Staying still was suicide.

Gathering his feet under himself, he—

The steel beams of the water tank shuddered and bent, sending him sideways. Cursing himself for moving too slow, Leonardo leaped as hard as he could, sacrificing stealth for height and just barely avoiding the tips of Saki's outstretched claws.

Leonardo landed in a roll, and the roof passed in a blur—the watertank's beams sliced and shearing under its own weight, Saki sprinting toward him, the black clouds covering the moon, water spilling out across the roof so that hot pipes exploded and steam shot across the concrete.

"Not as hidden as you think!" Saki shouted after him.

Leonardo came up running, jumped and turned in the air to throw every single shuriken he held, landing and plunging into the blackest shadows on the roof. As he moved deeper in the pitch dark, surrounded by steel and rust, he heard Saki's yell of pain as several shuriken struck true.

He didn't stop, didn't let fear lock him down. Water rose up to his ankles, covering the roof, choking several unseen motors that coughed and sparked. A wire fence cut him off, but he was up and over it before he could worry about its soft shaking rattle. Darting around an air conditioning unit, he heard its fans still humming with power, and he ran his hand underneath it, trying to find—

Saki's scream was his only warning. Throwing himself blindly backward, Saki's claws just missed his face and screeched against steel. Leonardo struck another fence, showering himself with rust, and turned to scramble up just as Saki took another swipe. Pain burned across his left leg, but Saki had aimed too high and too soon, leaving only a shallow cut above his knee.

Now Leonardo took advantage of his lighter size, moving up onto concrete that crumbled under Saki's steel boots. He turned, clinging with one hand onto the ledge, and looked down.

Saki already had several throwing knives in one hand, reaching back to begin his throw. Leonardo wasted precious time taking his own throwing knife and took a breath, held it—focused even as Saki flung a half dozen little blades—

The knife left Leonardo's fingers in a straight arc, easily missing Saki, who chuckled without dodging.

Wincing before he felt any pain, Leonardo turned hard but still took two knives in his shoulder. He clung tight to the ledge and pulled himself over the edge, balancing on what he now realized was the rooftop access door.

Only the terrible snarl and hiss of electricity followed. Suddenly horribly tired, he watched Saki's body slump down into the water, smoldering as sparks and smoke poured from the electrical cable severed by his knife.

He watched for several seconds, sure that Saki would leap up again as if this was a terrible horror movie, the monster that doesn't die. But Saki did not move, save for the occasional twitch, and Leonardo's pain was slowly fighting back the adrenalin that made it easy to ignore.

Leonardo pulled out the two knives, hoping that they weren't poisoned, pocketing them in case they were. His mask and spare mask made a handy bandage to press and tie tight over the wound.

Moving as if he was as heavy as lead, he wearily stood, began to pick his way over concrete, avoiding steel. The sound of his brothers' voices called him back toward their fight.


	29. "Okay... At what point... did we lose... control, here?" - Michelangelo

Even with Saki dead, too many Foot ninja remained. More than a dozen black clothed bodies lay on the floor but several more still stood, weapons ready, driving the three turtles back to back in the center of the roof. Throwing stars sank into Donatello's staff. Raphael blocked two katana and snapped them in half, driving his sai into exposed chests. Whirling nunchucks deflected a spear.

"Starting to feel a little boxed in here," Donatello said.

"We ain't leaving Leo," Raphael said, but he scanned the rooftop, searching for any glimpse of their brother. "Damn it, damn it, where is he?"

"Dude," Michelangelo said, "we ain't finding him standing around here."

Raphael bit off his curse, grumbling in agreement as he reached for his bombs.

A billow of smoke erupted around them and drifted with the wind, leaving behind an empty space amidst the Foot. An ever-widening circle off the Foot clan searched the neighboring roofs, the fire escapes and empty tenements. After a few seconds, the first building was left behind.

On the far side of the rooftop, Raphael nestled in the shadow against the ledge. Beside him, Michelangelo and Donatello shared a wide eyed look. Their hiding spot nearly had them out in the open—if any real gaze swept over their spot, they would have been seen immediately. But coupled with how the wind had blown the smoke, drawing attention to the side of the building instead of the far ledge, the shadows gave the three of them a clear view of their enemies methodically sweeping the neighborhood before finally dropping out of sight.

Donatello released the heavy breath he'd been holding. Beside him, Raphael relaxed and Michelangelo chuckled and leaned back, staring at the stars.

"I can't believe that worked," Raphael said.

"Not bad."

They all looked up. On the other side of the ledge, Leonardo leaned on the concrete overhang, giving them a tired smile.

"What are you standing on?" Donatello asked, craning back to try to see.

"Satellite dish," Leonardo said. "The illegal ones are the sturdiest—all the cords."

"You gave Shredder the slip?" Raphael said.

Leonardo shook his head once, but his smile changed, turned triumphant. If there was a touch of satisfied hate to his grin, it was mirrored in their own thoughts.

"Aw, hell yeah," Michelangelo said, taking a long, deep breath, no longer feeling the ache in his side.

"They're gonna be pissed when they find him," Donatello said.

"Probably call a lot more of them, too," Raphael said. "Okay, we'll take the storm culvert under the subway—let's just give them a few more seconds to get a little farther outta here."

The command carried an edge that twisted in Leonardo's heart. Raphael gave the command, Donatello and Michelangelo nodded and, after a moment, Leonardo nodded once as well.

But at the same time, the cut, painful at first, brought an unfamiliar sense of lightness, an untangling of a knot that Leonardo had struggled with ever since he'd slashed himself.

When they climbed over the side and dropped down to the street, using the shadows as their route to the subway entrance, Leonardo followed at his brothers' heels. Always looking back, always looking forward—how easy it was to fall silent as they quipped, to let Raphael lead them home. Raphael had led them out as well, had led them through the fight and then later to disappear.

Through the city's underground layers, they raced home beneath the sidewalks and streets, then deeper beneath the subway system and the hidden pipes and works of New York. Moonlight shone through the grates and curb gutters, suffusing a dim gloom through the tunnels, and Leonardo watched his brothers move through the darkness.

Wasuremono.

Things left behind.

As they came to their home, drawing nearer to the door, a terrible thought loomed in front of him.

He ran, for once, without feeling the constant pull in his arm, the monstrous tension in one side pulling him off balance. This was what he was meant to be, a shadow without weight. And shadows of his clan did not push into the light. Names forgotten by all, even their closest family, shadows didn't have to strive under their family's expectations, didn't have to follow when they'd primed themselves to lead.

Three shells ran before him.

Their shadow followed, silent, unseen, unheard.


	30. "Our domain is the shadow; stray from it reluctantly" - Splinter

In the book, the first page had been devoted to how the truly polite house guest must know when to leave, and how the host's earnest entreaties to remain must be put aside so that the guest may not overstay his welcome. To the wasuremono, the one left behind, the family that he protected might try to dissuade him from vanishing, but clan duty maintained that he must remain hidden—the disguised farmer, the nurse or teacher at work, the beggar or the veiled widow, ever close but never seen—until finally the family stopped looking.

When only three sons returned, laughing and cheering themselves at the night's great victory, Splinter lowered his gaze while his hand tightened on his walking stick.

"Sensei!" Michelangelo said. "We did it! Got a whole buncha ninja and Leo got freakin' Shredder!"

"And the rest of them didn't even see us take off," Donatello said. "A couple smoke bombs and they went following the smoke!"

"I..." Splinter choked. His voice stuck in his throat until the silence stretched, when he could force himself to speak. "I am pleased at this outcome."

"They won't be coming after us for awhile," Raphael said. "Not if they know what's good for them."

"Were you wounded?" Splinter asked quietly. "Any of you?"

"Didn't get a scratch," Raphael said as his siblings shrugged. "Although I didn't get to see...Leo?"

Raphael turned, then turned again as if he had merely overlooked his brother. When he met Spinter's look, however, realization dawned. His face fell.

Leonardo was not there.

Deep cold settled on him. Raphael thought about searching the pipes overhead, the dark spaces in each room, but how ridiculous was that, that his brother might be hiding behind the furniture? And he didn't have to search, anyway. Beside him, Michelangelo realized why his sensei and brother had fallen silent and began running from room to room, calling out to the eldest as he turned over every chair and table in the lair.

Donatello, frowning and pulling out his shellcell, sent a message to his brother. A faint ringing came from the kitchen counter, and they all turned to see Leonardo's shellcell by the empty pizza boxes and tea cups.

"That wasn't there before," Donatello said softly. "I know he had it with him."

"So he's in here," Michelangelo said, frowning as if their brother was personally ignoring just him. "And he's not answering me. Leo! Leo! I'm gonna find you!"

Raphael looked up at Splinter. "Make him come back."

"I cannot," Splinter said. The wood of his cane creaked under his tightening hand. "He has made his choice. It is clan tradition, and it was his choice to make—"

"Was it us?" Raphael demanded, first of Splinter and then to the air around them. "Did we make you do this? 'Cause if it's our fault, I'm sorry! I don't want you to do this! You hear me? Get out here!"

No reply. Donatello turned off the ringing in Leonardo's shellcell, and in the fading echo, even Michelangelo stopped searching, looking up at the air as if he might see his sibling from the corner of his eye.

Raphael's heart beat loud in his ears. Splinter said something about sacrifice, about clan tradition of things left behind, about how Leonardo felt this was the only way he could keep contributing to the family. The words washed over Raphael but refused to sink in. In the middle of Splinter's sentence, Raphael lifted his head.

"I wanna hear it from you," he said calmly.

No reply, but they all held silent, in expectation.

"I wanna hear it from you," Raphael said again, raking his fist over his eyes once. "You don't get to change everything just like that. I wanna hear you say it."

Still silence. Raphael grit his teeth, squeezing his eyes shut in frustration.

"Why the hell are you doing this?" he yelled. "Dammit, Leo, you owe us that much!"

He couldn't look at his stunned siblings, at Splinter's pained eyes. If Leonardo didn't say something soon, Raphael felt like he was going to scream and keep screaming forever.

"...it's what I am now."

Raphael whipped around.

In the doorway of the dojo, Leonardo leaned against one of the weapons racks, arms crossed, head down. Only now Raphael noticed the masks wrapped around Leonardo's shoulder, the bloody smear on his skin.

"What you are?" Raphael repeated.

"I don't fight like you anymore," Leonardo said quietly, glanced up at his brother from the corner of his eye. "I'm better when no one can see me. Not even you."

Raphael forced himself not to lunge at him, to try to pin Leonardo down. Even if he could grab him, he couldn't hold him forever.

They all saw how that strange word, wasuremono, would work. Leonardo wouldn't have to hide behind the sofa or in the shadows. He'd simply be alone in empty rooms. In the dojo, in his own bedroom, always alone, in plain sight but unseen.

"You don't want to talk to us anymore?" Raphael asked. He couldn't keep his voice from hitching, wounded and not knowing why his brother was hurting him. "Are we that bad?"

"No," Leonardo said quickly, looking up with wide eyes. "No, that's not it—"

"Are we in the way?" Raphael demanded. "Are you so much better now—"

"No!" Leonardo, surprised by his own feeling, looked away again. "I'm the one in the way. I couldn't even face Saki until I hid my own attacks—I'm the one that has to stay hidden."

Beside them, Michelangelo and Donatello looked between Raphael and Leonardo, unable to find any words. They had known something was shifting, something that was still refusing to mend inside their big brother, but it hadn't been so clear before. To have it thrown in their faces, worse, to have missed it until it was already passed... They waited for Raphael, somehow expecting him to fix this.

"Okay." Raphael nodded once, fists clenched. "Okay."

Leonardo paused, turning his head again. "...okay?"

"You can fight like that," Raphael said, nodding again. "In the middle of a fight, when we're outside, you can be all left behind, invisible, hidden, whatever."

Michelangelo choked and put a hand out. "Raph...no—"

"But when we're here," Raphael said, "home, where we ain't fighting, you don't. Not here. You don't get to disappear here."

"Raph—" Leonardo started.

"'Cause what's the point if you're hidden here?" Raphael said. "It's like you're dead. Or like we're dead."

Leonardo flinched, but he still shook his head. "I can't...you wouldn't be used to me being gone—you'll expect me to see me, and in a fight..."

In a fight, that could kill them. Trying to anticipate a hidden brother could be lethal. To keep them alive, to make this work, they had to no longer feel him there. Raphael could see his brother's dilemma but didn't care, pushing through it.

"So we train more," Raphael said. "And get used to you being gone. Do you have to be gone at home to be gone in a fight?"

_~ No matter how the host pleads, the guest must remember that to overstay his welcome is to put the host at an inconvenience. The guest must endure. ~_

"Leo...please."

Leonardo hesitated, then looked to his father, to his brothers. None of them spoke, but he read the longing in their eyes, the way they were all relying on Raphael to make the argument, but at the same time waiting to see what decision Leonardo came to.


	31. "strike hard and fade away, without a trace" - Splinter

Years passed. Saki was dead, come back as three deformed mutations of himself, then died again. Karai led the Foot clan, bringing them to something of a cease fire and an uneasy truce. And the Purple Dragons ultimately lost the gang wars, broken and absorbed by the more fearsome Jet Crowns.

Fearsome to other gangs.

A spray of gunfire peppered the side of the alley, blasting off pieces of concrete and steel and dropping the handful of die-hard Purple Dragons to the ground. As the shooter came forward, holding a machine gun in either arm, the streetlight exploded glass and sparks, turning everyone into black silhouettes.

"Seriously," Michelangelo said, landing on top of the two guns and boxing the shooter's ears hard enough that he felt the eardrums rupture. "Jet Crowns? What's that even mean?"

He did a sommersault off the flailing body, roundhousing another shooter on the way down.

"It's not like they have tiny little jetpacks on 'em," he said, pulling off the girl's jacket and showing off the back design. "It's just a boring ol' crown."

A staff swept through the air, smacking several men in a row, spilling them across the alley on top of dead Purple Dragons.

"Jet means black," Donatello sighed with the air of having explained it before. "They're black crowns—"

"That's so boring!" Michelangelo tossed the jacket aside and looked down the alley at his brother. "Hey, you almost done over there?"

"Just...a...sec!"

Raphael cursed under his breath, dodging the switchblades aimed at his face. Three crowns lay at his feet but two more charged at him with short, sharp thrusts—and then one suddenly had a throwing star in his knee, which gave Raphael enough of an opening to put a sai through his chest.

The steel stuck in the man's ribs, and Raphael had to bring his foot up to kick the man off. As he pulled his sai free, the splash of blood and the body dropping to the ground were the only sound in the alley.

The second knife user turned and ran.

"Hey!" Raphael cursed again, stepping over the body. "I wouldn't run if I was—"

There was a flash of light on steel, and then the Jet Crown stopped, fell to his knees and collapsed.

"Well," Raphael sighed. "Not like I didn't warn 'im."

"So that's like what?" Michelangelo asked, coming closer. "Two hundred of 'em by now?"

"Two-fifteen," Donatello said. "Not much of a dent in them yet."

"We're still just getting their attention," Raphael said over his shoulder, more interested in the space where the last Jet Crown had fallen. "Hey! The fight's done. You stay put!"

"I'm tired of just getting their attention," Michelangelo said, following Raphael through the alley. "I wanna take out a whole bunch of them all at once. They have that warehouse on the docks, right? Can't we just drop it though the dock into the ocean?"

Donatello shot him a look. "You want the list of reasons why that's a lousy idea alphabetized or bullet point?"

Raphael stopped at the last gangster's corpse, then looked up at the fire escape above them. His eyes had to adjust even more—there was no light out here save for the dim glow from an apartment several floors up—until he spotted Leonardo sitting on the lowest railing, his blooded sword in an easy grip, watching them quietly. At Raphael's look, he glanced away at the far wall.

"He was running," Raphael said.

"Didn't drop the knife," Leonardo said, half-shrugging. "Or the gun in his waistband."

Raphael huffed. No arguing on that point. Gangbangers only got to run if they dropped everything and weren't just retreating to safety.

"Let's head home," Raphael said, giving one last glance at the alley behind them. "We made our point. Turf wars means everyone winds up dead."

"Or that they need to bring more men," Leonardo said, sheathing his sword. He slid off the fire escape and landed beside him. "And more guns."

"You're just pissed I spotted ya," Raphael said, grinning as Leonardo glared at him.

But it was only a glare, and only for a moment. Leonardo knew he had himself to blame, refusing to blacken his swords while he searched for properly dark steel. He'd broken his last pair on Saki's armor.

"I wasn't trying that hard," Leonardo said. "Fight was over anyway."

They rarely argued anymore. Raphael had grown a head taller, possibly a head broader, and leadership lay on his shoulders naturally, finally used to trusting his siblings to fight well, the same as they trusted Leonardo to always have their back.

"We'll hit 'em in a couple days," Raphael said. "They need time to feel their numbers going down, get a little desperate. Then we hit their warehouse."

"Head on?" Michelangelo asked.

"A couple of Don's incendiaries dropped on 'em first," Raphael said. "Burn the place down around them. Maybe rob 'em blind. Y'know, soften 'em up."

Leonardo had fallen silent. Raphael glanced at him again, making sure he hadn't faded back into the darker shadows beside them. His brother winced and rotated his shoulder, rubbing the old scar on his arm.

Sometimes Raphael wondered how life would have been different if Leonardo hadn't destroyed his sense of balance, hadn't relinquished control to him.

At home, after he'd gone a couple rounds with the punching bag to settle his thoughts, Raphael went looking in on his siblings. Stepping into Donatello's lab was always a little awkward. Ever since he flushed the thing that used to be Timothy, Donatello didn't trust him around his living test subjects, but Raphael had felt in his heart that thing had to go. Even Splinter and Leonardo had backed him up. Donatello being upset with him was a small price to pay for Donatello no longer bearing up under the impossible task of bringing back that annoying wannabe.

Michelangelo had curled up on the floor in front of the televisions, snatching precious time with his favorite video game, Spinning Geisha Miracle. Their constant training left him little time to hurl painted wooden tops at countless yokai enemy, but a good fight left him so hyper that a heavy blanket and some chips and a dancing geisha screaming out her attacks helped relax his nerves.

And in the dojo, sitting before the dozens of candles, Leonardo meditated, although the way he kept worrying at his arm belied how he was clearly not at ease.

"I'm not hiding," Leonardo said before Raphael could.

Raphael wordlessly reached over and put his hand on his brother's shoulder, pushing down lightly on a pressure point and rolling his palm over the joint. Leonardo stiffened, then breathed out as the pain released.

"Didn't say ya were," Raphael said. "Y'know, if it's getting bad again, you can just come ask me. I don't want you suffering in silence."

"...it's not that bad," Leonardo said. "Just pulls now and then."

Raphael held his brother's arm out, turned it over gently, then worked his fingertips along the jagged scar, now faded and only slightly raised. Leonardo hissed but bore up under the pain, and after several minutes, the muscle finally began to relax.

"It's 'cause you get so damn tense," Raphael said. "You need more time letting it rest."

Leonardo rolled his eyes. "It can rest when I'm asleep. You up to helping me work it out?"

Raphael scoffed even as he got to his feet. "Don't run crying to Splinter when I mop the floor with ya."

"As if," Leonardo said, standing and allowing his old injuries to pull him to one side, already beginning the slow circling that usually led to him vanishing. "You won't even see me put you down."

Raphael didn't let him see his smile. Even a year ago, this would have been impossible. Balance was slow to return to his sibling, but even slower was the pride that had been crushed out of him. Only after being ordered to kill Saki again, that Raphael believed only a master of stealth could kill another ninja master, had Leonardo begun to feel like a full member of the family once more.

And if Leonardo still couldn't land a jump without going sideways, then he caught himself on one hand and more easily dodged attacks. If his scars took him one way, he no longer resisted, following different paths in battle, all angles instead of straight lines. And as they fought, Raphael learned to find him no matter how hard he hid, and Leonardo learned to accept being found and dragged back into the light.

If they had thought about it, they might have given it a name.

Wasuremono.

Pain, fear and shame...all left behind.

end


End file.
